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HIS BROKEN SWQRD BY 
WINNIE LOUISE'iAYLOR 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE 



CAMBRIDGE AND CHICAGO 
PUBLISHED BY STONE AND KIMBALL 
M DCCC XCIII 

- ^ 4 ^ 


Copyright, 1888, 1893 
By'W. L. Taylor 

THIS IS OF THE THIRD EDITION 


TO THE 

REVEREND EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 


Does every writer find that his work is woven of many friend- 
ships., — of the blended influence of other lives upon his own ? 

I can never estimate how much of all that led to the existence of 
this hook is owing to you, dear friend, so unfailing was the inspira- 
tion of your sympathy and encouragement through the years from 
'which these pages were gathered. 


February, 1888. 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A Lakeside Interior 9 

II. Was it Nemesis ? 17 

III. Germany lends a Hand ...... 23 

IV. Pruning-Hooks turned into Spears . . 29 

V. A Last Waltz 33 

VI. Star-spangled Banner, and Bonnie Blue 

Flag 38 

VII. Widening Vistas 42 

VIII. “Will you walk into my Parlor.?” • ■ 47 

IX. An Involuntary Incendiary 56 

X. Pursuit 62 

XI. Unrest 68 

XII. Over the Waves and Far Away ... 72 

XIII. A Transplanted Bostonian 79 

XIV. Diversions 85 

XV. Another Waltz 91 

I 


11 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER page 

XVI. Cupid in a Cemetery 103 

XVII. Halcyon Days . . 114 

XVIII. A Sign of the Times 126 

XIX. Hidden Springs 133 

XX. An Open Enemy 137 

XXI. An Interlude 142 

XXII. “A Moment of Eternity” .... 146 

XXI 1 1. A Lawyer’s Opinion 153 

XXIV. Woman’s Weakness 162 

XXV. Woman’s Strength 166 

XXVI. Cross-Purposes 169 

XXVII. The Lawsuit ended 175 

XXVIII. Conservative and Radical .... 181 

XXIX. The Harebell clings to the Rock . 188 

XXX. A Love-knot 195 

XXXI. On the Heights 204 

XXXII. A Parting 212 

XXXIII. In the Depths 218 

XXXIV. The Photograph 225 

XXXV. A Sharp Contrast 230 

XXXVI. A Silent Storm 236 

XXXVII. Taking a Risk 243 

XXXVI 11 . The Key-Note changes 247 

XXXIX. The Answer to a Farewell . . . 252 


CONTENTS. 


iii 

CHAPTER page 

XL. A Glimpse of Happiness 257 

XLI. An Advocate of Hanging 262 

XLII. Men and Brothers 269 

XLIII. Mr. and Mrs. Smith 280 

XLIV. The Fate of Willie North .... 285 

XLV. One, or Many? 291 

XLVI. A Last Evening 297 

XLVII. The Circle widens 301 

XLVI II. A Mistaken Vocation 309 

XLIX. Released 315 

L. Rowing against the Tide 319 

LI. Substitution 324 

LI I. Cupid tries a Violin 335 

LIII. Katharine takes up the Gauntlet . 341 

LIV. In Port 348 



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INTRODUCTION. 


BINSON CRUSOE, the most celebrated 
of romances, owes its permanent fame 
to the tragic interest of its subject. It 
is the story of a man who is for twenty- 
four years in solitary confinement in a desert 
island. 

Men feel that such imprisonment describes the 
most terrible tragedy in human life. Man is a 
gregarious animal. To take him from his fellows 
is like taking a bee from the hive. Whether that 
bee lives under a glass tumbler, or in a paradise 
of flowers, it is all one. He is miserable till you 
restore him to his kind. 

In De Foe’s great story, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, he has added to its pathos and to the 
intensity of its interest by the broken lights which 
show how exquisite are the circumstances of the 
prison. The story shows that circumstance is nothing 
if the man be alone. 

He is in the midst of tropical luxury. Yet his 
wind is always cool and bracing, because it is off the 
sea. Nature offers him everything, — grapes, mel- 



VI 


INTROD UCTION. 


ons, — sun or shade, — food from the sea, from the 
trees, from the savannahs. But Nature cannot offer 
Robinson anything which he prizes, because he is 
alone. 

The most suggestive of the stories of the Arabian 
Nights point their moral with the same lesson. 

Silvio Pellico — in his Austrian dungeons — 
lived one of these lonely lives. His story is one 
of the tragedies of our time. And because he 
told it, the word “ Austria ” will be hateful for 
centuries. 

I do not remember, however, any author who has 
chosen this tragedy for the purposes of a story, as 
it works out its scenes and acts in one of our 
modern prisons, until Miss Taylor conceived and 
wrote the story of “ The BROKEN SwORD,” which 
is in the reader’s hand. 

And Miss Taylor would tell us, that she did not 
write the book because she wanted to write a 
story. No. She wrote the story because she wanted 
thoughtful people in America to remember the 
prisoner in his prison. Yes, — as the good God 
remembers him. 

It is indeed a matter for very serious thought and 
question, that here is one of the very acts of 
mercy described in the Saviour’s great parable of 
the Judgment, — which, for the exigencies of Red 
Tape, and at the dictum which rightly pronounces 
“prunes, prisms, and prunella,” is in general life 
left on one side by Christian men and women. 

There are few churches and few Christians, 
which could not make, or who could not make, a 


INTRO D UCTION. 


vii 

decent answer, if at the daily bar of judgment they 
were asked, Have you fed the hungry? ” 

“ I have, — dear Lord.” 

“Have you given drink to the thirsty?” 

“ There is a free fountain in front of our church, — 
dear Lord.” 

“ Have you cared for strangers?” 

“ Indeed, I have tried to, — dear Lord.” 

“ Have you clothed the naked?” 

“Certainly we have done that, dear Lord. The 
sewing society meets every week, and no week 
passes but we send a barrel of clothing away.” 

“ Have you visited the sick? ” 

“ Indeed we have, — indeed we have. We main- 
tain a friendly nurse, and whenever she calls on us, 
we are careful to go.” 

It is not in the answer to these five questions 
that the average Christian man would falter. He 
would falter when the sixth question came. 

“ Have you visited the prisoner in his prison?” 

He would have to say, “Dear Lord, perhaps 
you do not understand that the social arrange- 
ments of our time are different from those of Pales- 
tine. You do not understand that one cannot visit a 
prison without a pass from the Prison Commission- 
ers. You can hardly see how much inconvenience, 
in the present system of prison discipline, would 
result if every person who is called by Thy name 
should feel that it was his place to give comfort or 
strength to those who are shut up within four walls. 
I have been obliged, therefore, to delegate this duty 
out of those which I have well understood were 


INTRODUCTION-. 


viii 

required at my hands. I have paid my taxes for 
the maintenance of prisons, I have read annually the 
report of the Commissioners ; but in point of fact I 
must say in all frankness that I never entered a prison 
door.” 

Now, Miss Taylor would tell us that she has writ- 
ten this book, not for the purpose of winning repute 
as an author, not for the purpose of making us cry 
as we read of the long-wrought suffering of her 
hero ; but to interest us, as she has been interested, 
in the lives of those who are within the four walls. 
And I think she means that the book shall ask us 
the question whether we do personally know the 
lives of prisoners, the lives of prisoners’ families, the 
method of administration of the prison system, as we 
ought to know these things. For one, I shall be sur- 
prised if any person can read this book through 
without a quickened conscience in these affairs. 

For myself, as Miss Taylor well knows, she has 
been my nearest adviser and counsellor in the busi- 
ness of the management of prisons for many years. 
There are complicated questions which arise as to 
the treatment of prisoners, as to the treatment of 
their families, as to what shall happen to them when 
they leave the prison walls, broken by years of 
confinement. When these questions arise, in the 
course of my life, I never think of solving them 
without consulting her. 

EDWARD E. HALE, 

Minister of the South Congregational Church. 


Boston, Oct. 24, 1893. 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 



CHAPTER I. 

A LAKESIDE INTERIOR. 

IXTREMES met in the marriage of Dr. and 
Mrs. Kennard ; they met and united, although 
indignant relatives placed the Atlantic Ocean 
between them for a year before the union. 

The Doctor was a Maine man, a typical New Englander; 
Mrs. Kennard, though reared by relatives in Maryland, had 
early been left an orphan in her native city of New Orleans : 
he had no fortune beyond the equipment furnished by char- 
acter, intelligence, and education ; she had inherited beauty 
and wealth, with a background of ancestral luxury. 

But the Doctor established a prosperous medical prac- 
tice in the picturesque Western town of Milwaukee, and 
ten years of wedded life had justified his wife in the roman- 
tic experiment of marrying for love. On one of the heights 
commanding a view of Lake Michigan and the beautiful 
southeastern curve of Milwaukee Bay stood their home, 
a low, irregular stone building, modelled after the Southern 
home of Mrs. Kennard’s girlhood. 


10 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


The roof and heavy comice of dark-red brown were in 
rich contrast with the creamy yellow of the stone ; a Vir- 
ginia-creeper threw out its moss-like fibres and fearlessly 
clasped the rough stone, twining itself into a frame around 
the lower windows, and throwing upward delicate sprays of 
foliage that were tender green in May, but flamed into 
crimson and orange in October. The front door and win- 
dows opened upon a broad piazza overlooking the vast 
plain of the ever-changing lake, where often at twilight 
water melted into sky, and distant ships sailed away into 
paradise. From the sunny south-side dining-room was 
thrown a conservatory ; there flourished the enormous 
ferns and tropical plants that were Mrs. Kennard’s pet ex- 
travagance. This passion for flowers was evident in every 
room. At the end of the hall dividing the main interior 
of the lower story, a large, jug-like piece of pottery on a 
standard always held the most brilliantly colored flowers 
that garden or conservatory could supply. Mrs. Kennard 
liked high colors in shadow. 

The tall vases on either side of the library grate were 
filled in spring-time with blossoming branches. The 
snowy clusters of dogwood and black-hawes were great 
favorites ; they were followed in summer by ferns, vines, 
grasses, and other cool and shadowy looking growths cap- 
tured from the woods near by. Later came the golden-rod 
and purple asters, and boughs of maple in vivid autumn 
tints. This six-sided library was a favorite room with Mrs. 
Kennard. She liked its soft gray tints and shades of 
crimson, that looked warm in winter, and cool when the 
light was subdued in summer. Here were kept a few 
treasured pieces of furniture which had belonged to her 
father and mother during their brief wedded life. There 
was a large, old-fashioned sofa of crimson plush, in a frame 
of iron painted to represent dark wood ; the supports of the 


A LAKESIDE INTERIOR. 


II 


arms moulded into a scroll of leaves that terminated in a 
woman’s face in high relief. In her girlhood Mrs. Kennard 
had been told that if only those two stern faces could open 
their iron lips they might unfold most interesting chapters 
of romance ; for this sofa had been a sort of Lovers’ Retreat 
for more than one generation of Bentons. To Mrs. Ken- 
nard it was not only a lifeless article of furniture, it had 
assumed the character of an old family friend and confi- 
dant, — one that sacredly held all secrets reposed in its 
keeping. 

Not far from this silent witness of sentiment stood an 
antique mahogany secretaire, along whose shelves were 
ranged the books that had belonged to Mrs. Kennard’s 
father, selections from the English and French classics 
so dear to cultivated Southerners, with a few translations 
from the Latin and Greek. 

Dr. Kennard had his own case of representative Ameri- 
can authors, — the collection of books increasing as new 
volumes were issued by the writers. The literature of New 
England seemed especially related to himself in the mind 
of the Doctor, — a sense of ownership shared by New 
Englanders generally. 

While abroad, Mrs. Kennard had developed a penchant 
for Madonnas; and turn where you would in the library, 
some gentle-eyed Holy Mother looked down upon you. 
The Madonna della Sedia, with Mother and Child so ex- 
pressive of solid human comfort in each other’s affection, 
was especially liked by the presiding genius, whose home 
was in most respects a reflection of her own tastes and 
disposition. 

Mrs. Kennard was not an intellectual woman ; original 
ideas and independent mental conclusions were outside of 
her sphere. Few persons suspected this, so well selected 
were her adopted ideas ; and she acted upon her second- 


12 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


hand conclusions with individual independence. Well- 
educated and sympathetic, she lived mainly in her tastes 
and feelings; she would as soon have thought of turn- 
ing away from her flowers, music, and family cares to 
open a lead mine, as to seek her own solutions of the 
problems of existence. Her religion was that of a trusting 
heart, — by no means an objectionable religion. The Epis- 
copal faith in which she was reared was accepted without 
question : was not all doubt a sin ? The law of love as- 
sumed pre-eminence through her own affectionate nature 
and became her own standard of conduct; but then, the 
law of love had its recognized limitations, drawn theoreti- 
cally at the wilfully wicked, whoever they might be : as an 
eternal punishment was prepared, there must be those 
deserving it. Class lines, distinctly marked, were included 
in her theory of special providential arrangement. Her 
own happy state in life awakened daily gratitude ; but then, 
had she not always tried to do right, and was it not natural 
that the good Lord should make existence agreeable to 
her? 

One strong and unwavering prejudice she cherished, — 
against the advocates of Woman’s Rights ; they shocked 
her taste and her sense of the proper relations of humanity, 
and aroused a sort of pained indignation. Having always 
done exactly as she pleased, holding her property in com- 
plete independence, possessing at once all of woman’s 
rights in addition to all of woman’s privileges, this wretched 
desire to have the existing state of affairs revolutionized, 
was incomprehensible to her ; she could not conceive what 
more woman could want; it would have been a positive 
comfort to her to know that every one of the agitators were 
within the walls of an insane asylum. It was her belief that 
it was for woman’s happiness to be well taken care of, to 
be lovable, to be charming. 


A LAKESIDE INTERIOR. 


13 


Charming, beyond all question, Mrs. Kennard certainly 
was. Natural tact, a perfect manner, and genuine kindness 
of heart blossomed daily in beautiful consideration for 
others ; and her serene good-nature turned the edge of the 
small annoyances inseparable from family life. She gave 
a winning smile, and received whatever she asked. Her 
European travel had developed her social qualities, polished 
her natural grace of manner, and furnished a fund of delight- 
ful reminiscence. Sometimes a little inaccurate as to facts, 
her impressions were always vividly retained and vividly 
reproduced, with a broad, artistic treatment that made 
her an extremely entertaining talker. Her Southern eyes 
saw life in tropical colors, and the golden light of her 
imagination created a fascinating medium through which 
the listener viewed her related experiences. 

Dr. Kennard never reasoned about his wife ; he believed 
in her goodness, her constancy and loyalty, as he believed 
in Heaven. That the love and the companionship of this 
beautiful, true-hearted woman were a part of his own life, 
never ceased to be marvellous to him. Her limitations 
amused him ; when they came directly under his notice he 
accepted them as not half serious. Intellectually he might 
have missed something had not his profession so taxed 
brain and nerve that repose became the one thing to be 
desired; and the presence of his wife created a restful 
atmosphere in which the remembrance of care was lost. 

The pictured Madonnas on the walls of Mrs. Kennard’s 
library were often rivalled by the living picture of the 
mother as she held one or another of her children' in her 
arms. 

It was with half-puzzled wonder that Mrs. Kennard re- 
garded Katharine, her eldest child, — Katharine, with her 
long light hair and limpid hazel eyes, with nose inclin- 
ing to the piquant angle, and the firm, sensitive mouth. 


14 


HIS BROKEN SIVORD. 


prophetic of a resolute but impressionable nature. Wholly 
foreign to the Bentons was the standard by which this little 
girl formed her swift decisions and judgments. The inner 
light which guided her seemed a ray from some distant star, 
rather than a torch lit at the home fireside. 

Dr. Kennard felt that he had never understood his 
mother until his daughter became her interpreter. And 
yet it was to her mother that Katharine owed the warmer 
currents in her temperament, the softer impulses and the 
unconscious spontaneity that gave her, even in childhood, 
the indefinable quality which is called charm. It was the 
character forming beneath the surface of temperament 
which eluded Mrs. Kennard. 

Far more nearly akin to the mother seemed her two 
boys. Adair, with his great black eyes, his affectionate, 
impetuous disposition, his rollicking outbursts of laughter, 
and his tempests of tears, was thoroughly a Benton. “ A 
real Southerner,” Mrs. Kennard would say, with fond, 
motherly pride. 

Under the spell of his ringing tones the old days of her 
childhood in Baltimore came back; she could shut her 
eyes and recall the very scent of the magnolias, fancying 
herself again a little girl romping with her cousin Adair at 
The Willows. 

In strong contrast to his brother was blue- eyed, golden- 
haired Leslie, the youngest, the one just wandering out 
from mysterious babyland. The deepest springs of tender- 
ness in his mother’s heart opened towards this child ; he 
seemed an angel straight from heaven confided to her 
care. 

The Doctor, realizing how frail is our hold upon these 
precious young lives, could not bear to look at his wife when 
she gave her lingering good-night to her darling. Her 
expression of unutterable affection and happiness was too 


A LAKESIDE INTERIOR. 


15 


suggestive of a dread possibility. ^^The bliss of eternity ” 
in her eyes inevitably reminded him of “ that sword of 
danger which hangs by a hair.” 

Katharine never appeared so like her mother as when 
playing with the other children. She and Adair were boon 
companions. Usually she yielded to his boyish self-asser- 
tions, his whims and caprices, with an odd, elderly indul- 
gence, as trifles not worth considering ; but let Adair make 
the slightest attempt to tyrannize over Leslie, and the 
sister became a champion, formidable and decided. It was 
beautiful to see her motherly air of protection and fondness 
towards the youngest. Her protecting tenderness extended 
to all weak or defenceless things. 

Mrs. Kennard, who loved out-of-door life, often took the 
children to the woods for the morning in summer. On one 
of these occasions little Leslie stayed near his mother, and 
at last fell asleep in her arms while listening to her low 
singing of old plantation-songs. She kept on singing in the 
fulness of her happiness as she looked down on the fair, 
lovely face, bordered with rings and tendrils of golden hair. 
After a time the other two children, who had gone off to- 
gether, returned. Katharine, remembering what her mother 
liked for the vases at home, was weary and heavy-laden, 
her arms filled and overflowing with long sprays of snowy 
clematis ; while Adair, with hat converted into a basket, had 
gathered a number of small stones,- — for Adair was making 
a ‘‘ geogical collection for papa.” When the flushed children 
threw down their burdens and cast themselves beside their 
mother for a rest, she was ready with one of the never- 
failing stories of her childhood. And then, noticing a 
clump of larkspur-violets growing near, she sent Adair for 
the flowers, offering to teach him and Kathie a little game 
that she and her cousins had played with violets. Hooking 
two of the little heads together just beneath the blossoms, 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


l6 

she gave a stem to each child, with the direction, Now 
pull.” 

Adair laughed gleefully at the result; but Katharine 
looked towards her mother with reproach and surprise in 
her hazel eyes. 

I don’t think that is a very nice game ; I don’t care 
to play it any more.” Then, picking up the two fallen 
flowers, she continued : See, they look like small human 
beings ! I think it is very sorrowful to destroy them like 
that when they were growing so happily in a family.” 

Mrs. Kennard felt uncomfortable, and thought : What 
a queer, fanciful child she is ! ” But Adair, boy-fashion, only 
laughed again, saying, “ I think it’s fun ! And Kathie, you 
know they ar^ n't human beings ; you know they can’t 
feel. Why do you think such things ? ” Alice had not yet 
come from “ Wonderland ” with the unanswerable “ Why 
not?” and Mrs. Kennard offering to carry home the violet 
faces and put them in a saucer of water, Katharine was 
consoled. 

Just then Adair looked through an opening in the trees 
and announced, “ I see Peter with the carriage coming in 
the dumb distance.” 

Katharine, far more likely to make mistakes in her am- 
bitious experiments with half-familiar words than was Adair 
with his limited and simple vocabulary, keenly relished any 
blunder of her brother’s. On the way home she kept re- 
peating to herself, “ dumb distance,” dumb distance,” 
treasuring it as a good thing in reserve for her father. 


CHAPTER II. 


WAS IT NEMESIS? 

the clematis and violets came another year, 
sun was shining on a double grave in the 
letery. Carved upon the stone were the 
les “Adair and Leslie Kennard.” Scarlet- 
fever, that dread enemy of childhood, had entered the 
happy home. First Adair, then, two days later, Leslie had 
been taken, while Katharine escaped even illness. 

The Doctor’s realization of his own loss was suspended 
by absorbing anxiety for his wife, whose existence since 
early childhood had been free from all sorrow. But Mrs. 
Kennard’s religious faith was an unmeasured source of 
strength to her. The deeper forces of her nature, the 
calmness and endurance never before tested, stood firm 
in this trial. Her beautiful eyes were wells of sorrow, but 
they reflected the angel of faith. It seemed a mysterious 
Providence that had separated her from her children, but 
of their welfare and happiness not a doubt crossed her 
mindj and she held the comforting assurance that some 
time she should meet them, and the tie between herself 
and them be recognized. 

Mrs. Kennard looked very beautiful in her deep mourn- 
ing, with the still, far-away expression, as if she were listen- 



i8 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


ing to voices unheard by others : and indeed she could 
not bear to lose the remembrance of the tones in which 
her absent ones had spoken, or to forget the touch of 
Leslie’s soft, clinging little fingers. It was not strange 
that her loss and those tender memories absorbed her, and 
made her for a time almost oblivious to the fact that any 
one but herself was suffering. 

The Doctor involuntarily began to rely in a way upon 
Katharine. The strongest sympathy and most complete 
understanding existed between the two. Katharine saw, 
and in a child-like way shared, his solicitude for her mother ; 
and though depressed and awed by the strange shadow of 
death over their home, it became her chief thought to 
cheer and comfort her mother. “ Mamma might be lonely, 
now she has only me,” was her refusal when other children 
tried to draw her away from home. 

Together Mrs. Kennard and Katharine looked over and 
packed away the playthings, carefully treasuring every 
memento of the beloved boys. Then Mrs. Kennard wrote 
the record of their brief lives, Katharine contributing many 
remembered baby words and baby blunders, with careful 
accounts of little scenes that took place in the nursery 
unknown to the mother. 

Katharine missed the companionship of her little play- 
mates ; the parting had been a real wrench to her tender 
heart, but she had many resources, and her grief soon 
passed. Heaven, the home of the boys, became an imagi- 
nary addition to her known world ; and her thoughts often 
strayed through the gates of pearl, along the streets of gold, 
where she fancied her little brothers, — still dark-eyed Adair 
and golden-haired Leslie. 

After some weeks had passed there came a change in 
the calm resignation of Mrs. Kennard’s grief. The pure 


f 


fVAS IT NEMESIS? 


19 


and sacred sorrow was dyed with fear and remorse, and in 
the place of a mysterious and tender Providence she faced 
the thought of an avenging Power. 

Her sorrow over her dead children had gradually revived 
a long-withered recollection of her childhood. Again she 
was in New Orleans, a little girl standing beside her dead 
father; and then followed the breaking up of the home 
and the selling of the slaves, — among these her colored 
nurse Rosina, who had been like a mother to her ever 
after the death of her own mother. Again she remembered 
how Rosina had been parted from her own two daughters, 
and each one sold to a dilferent master ; and Rosina’s look 
of stony despair as she left her home, childless, to go away 
among strangers, haunted her night and day. 

Night after night she dreamed of Adair and Leslie, — 
dreamed of seeing them torn, living, from her arms by 
Rosina and carried away into slavery ; until to awaken to a 
realization of their death was a relief. She looked at little 
Katharine, only to wonder if she too lay under the doom of 
a fearful retribution. Her sorrow had become the interpre- 
ter of sin, and she seemed to see its shadow everywhere. 

It was her husband who suggested a practical step which 
did much to restore Mrs. Kennard’s peace of mind. 

Send to your cousins in Baltimore for three young 
colored girls, and let them come here as servants ; that will 
be a simple and direct act of reparation to a race whose 
children are still taken from their mothers by a power 
more cruel than death,” the Doctor said when at last his 
wife unburdened the secret sorrow of her soul to him. 

It ’s going to be such a comfort to me to do this,” 
Mrs. Kennard said to her husband as she was writing to 
her cousin Adair. “And, John,” — here her voice low- 
ered, — “ if it had not been for our boys we never should 
have thought of this ; it comes through them, this gift of 


20 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


freedom ; ” and hugging this precious assurance to her 
heart, she finished her letter. 

The next day little Katharine came to her mother with 
Hawthorne’s “Wonder-Book” in her hand. “Mamma,” 
she said, “won’t you read to me about the Chimera?” 

Mrs. Kennard began the story. She had forgotten about 
the Fountain of Pirene that was once a beautiful woman 
who melted away all into tears over the death of her son, 
and her voice trembled as she read : “ And so the water 
which you find so cool and sweet is the sorrow of that 
poor mother’s heart.” 

“Oh ! that never could be, mamma, could it?” Katha- 
rine asked, with wondering earnestness. 

“Yes, dear, I think so, I hope so,” the mother an- 
swered, laying down the book and drawing her little girl 
nearer. 

Just then a white kitten appeared on the piazza where 
they were sitting. 

“ Never mind about the Chimera now, mamma ; we 
must find a name for the kitten,” Katharine said, reaching 
out and picking up the new-comer. “Oh you darling 
white thing ! you ’re just as sweet as you can be ; but prickly 
as a rose-bush,” she added. 

“ Blanche Sweetbrier, how do you like that for a name^ 
Kathie? ‘Blanche ’ means white.” 

Katharine approved with enthusiasm, and the kitten was 
immediately decorated with a rose-colored ribbon. “ I 
must see that your roses are kept fresh,” Katharine said, 
giving a feminine pat to the pink bow, and then affection- 
ately stroking the silky fur of the wearer. 

Blanche Sweetbrier evinced her satisfaction in true kitten 
fashion. Katharine’s eyes sparkled. “ Oh, mamma, just 
hear her gentle purr burst forth in ecstasy / ” she 
exclaimed. 


PFAS IT NEMESIS? 


21 


A soft, rippling laugh escaped Mrs. Kennard and greeted 
her husband coming up the garden walk. Hearing her 
father, Katharine bounded down the steps and joined him. 
“ Papa,” she said, in a low, eager tone, did you hear 
mamma’s laugh? Wasn’t it like music? Poor dear mam- 
ma ! But she has seemed happier all day to-day ; I sup- 
pose it ’s the lovely new kitten. Who would have thought 
that she cared so much for kittens? ” 

Mrs. Kennard’s birthday was close at hand ; and charmed 
by the effect of Lady Blanche, Katharine soon decided 
upon a birthday present for her mother, and confided her 
wish to the Doctor. 

“ I want two dogs, — twins, you know ; you must try 
and get twins, — yellow and black, and rather curly, — and 
amiable, so that I can trust Blanche Sweetbrier with them.” 

Two beautiful Gordon setters were secured, and the 
Doctor took Katharine to see them. 

‘‘Are they named?” she inquired of the lank and limber 
youth who exhibited them. 

“ Named? I guess so. I name ’em in earliest infancy ; 
the last was a bed of flowers, — Rose, Pink, Poppy, and so 
on. These is named from poets, the whole set, — Byron 
and Shakspeare, and Wadsworth ’s over there ; but these 
two, the best of the lot, ’s after the noble Romans, Dante 
and Tasso.” 

Katharine was impressed. She heffeelf carried the silver 
collars to be engraved with these classical appellations. 

The birthday came, and the twins were presented. A 
prouder child than Katharine it would have been hard to 
find as she said : “ They are named after noble Roman 
poets, mamma ; the man said so. And they ’re awfully ’cute 
names too. Just look on their collars ! ” 

It was with difficulty that the flopping creatures were 
kept still long enough for Mrs. Kennard to read, in all the 


22 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


elegance of the engraver’s art, on one Dandy ; ” on the 
other, “Tassel.” 

“ Kathie, darling, they ’re perfect beauties,” said her 
mother ; but Kathie was puzzled by the glance of amuse- 
ment that flashed beyond her to the Doctor. 

The competent servants sent from the South soon after 
proved not only a mental and moral solace, but a satis- 
factory domestic element in the household. The mother 
did not cease to miss her absent children, but old interests 
were resumed, and gradually her natural serenity of spirit 
asserted itself. 


CHAPTER III. 


GERMANY LENDS A HAND. 



ANY of the foreigners who composed an impor- 
tant portion of the early settlers of Milwaukee 
were from the educated classes; and as the 
place increased in importance, a fine Eastern 
element gathered there. 

Individuality was pronounced, and social intercourse was 
cordial and unconventional. The ladies from the East, 
anxious not to fall behind old friends in information, 
eagerly read the new books and studied the old ones as 
they had not done in communities where they expected to 
inhale “ culture ” in the air. Through “ lecture-courses ” 
the silver-tongued prophets, priests, and poets from a 
distance poured their purest inspirations into this fresh 
Western life ; and more than one of these eloquent leaders 
carried with him from Milwaukee the remembrance of a 
delightful gathering of congenial spirits at Dr. Kennard’s 
home after the close of a lecture. 

It was in this active and exhilarating mental and social 
atmosphere that Katharine Kennard passed through child- 
hood into girlhood. It had been Mrs. Kennard’s intention 
to have private teachers for her daughter until Katharine 
was old enough to be sent East to finish her education ; but 


24 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


to this plan the Doctor objected. He saw in his daughter 
a combination of the two women he had loved best, — 
his mother and his wife. Her heart was warm, her con- 
science sensitive, her sincerity unclouded, her mind at 
once receptive and penetrating, and she was fearless in 
opinion and action. The Doctor wished to secure for her 
the free development of a fine nature under the conditions 
which were likely to surround her future. 

Katharine is a Milwaukee girl,” the Doctor said to his 
wife. “ Let her natural grain be polished and brought out ; 
but I don’t want any veneering, any surface Bostonian, 
New Yorker, or Philadelphian.” He believed that the 
character to stand the wear and tear, the suns and storms 
of hfe was the one developed from within outward, and 
not a stamped article. And then Dr. Kennard had been 
an earnest advocate of the public school, and thought it 
but consistent that he should send his daughter to that 
democratic institution ; but he willingly conceded that she 
should have a final year at any Eastern seminary which his 
wife might select. 

Katharine’s horizon began to widen with her entrance into 
the public school. She was then a slim girl, alert and grace- 
ful in her movements, with long silky braids down her back, 
and a face expressive and attractive, but not beautiful. 

A certain Elsie Brentano, a plump, blond maiden of 
German descent, was one of the recipients of Katharine’s 
school-girl devotion. Elsie had a good solid mind as well 
as body, and was a leader in her classes; her calm and 
matronly aplomb afforded sure anchorage for Katharine’s 
energetic activity; and a firm friendship was formed be- 
tween the two. 

The Brentano home possessed great charm for Katha- 
rine ; an occasional evening there was like an excursion 
into a foreign land. The whole Brentano family were mu- 


GERMANY LENDS A HAND. 


25 


sical, and the father and mother, with their older children, 
could furnish a domestic concert of real excellence. Kath- 
arine would quiver with enthusiasm when the male voices 
made the room ring with their folk-songs and drinking- 
songs, and Herr Brentano’s rendering of Schumann was 
something to be remembered for a lifetime. 

It was after one of these evenings with the Brentanos 
that the young girl amazed her mother by declaring that 
she hated her pieces with variations, and never wanted to 
touch the piano again unless she could take lessons of 
Herr Brentano ; further asserting that her present teacher. 
Miss Marsh, seemed to think that music was only so much 
sound to so much time ; while the Professor’s music, — 
why it was poetry and pictures, it was smiles and tears, it 
was sunshine and storm ; it was everything! 

“ Well, Kathie, I reckon you had better go to bed ; we 
don’t want all these things in our parlor just now. And did 
you practise your scales to-day?” was Mrs. Kennard’s ex- 
tinguishing reply. But there was a reassuring look in 
Mamma Kennard’s face that gave hope to Miss Katharine 
as she tossed back her braids and bent to kiss her mother 
good-night. 

When Professor Brentano took her in training soon after, 
Katharine discovered that some rather severe drill in the 
way of notes and time went into the production of the 
poetry and sunshine. But however much she disliked 
laying her musical foundations, the development of the 
superstructure was always simple delight to her. She 
seized on phrasing with a keen intellectual interest that 
astonished her teacher. She liked to make the acquain- 
tance of a new piece of music away from the piano, famil- 
iarizing herself with movement, rhythm, and phrasing, — 
mastering the idea of the composition before hearing a note 
of it. “ I don’t want the sound to distract my attention,” 


26 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


she would say. But when she played, she listened with 
complete absorption and self-forgetfulness, as though every 
tone spoke to her heart and carried a message too precious 
to be missed. 

‘‘When the mind as well as the emotions apprehend 
music, then we get our true musicians,” said the Profes- 
sor to his wife at the close of one of Katharine’s lessons. 
“What a pity it is that this young Miss Kennard is not 
poor ; then she might flower into something of a genius. 
But now, life is too easy for her, furnishes too many distrac- 
tions. Then, too, she will play for those stupid young 
men, — beaux they call them ; they have to go to the friv- 
olous French to get a word light enough to define them, 
— they will want to hear nothing better than airs from Ital- 
ian operas ; and, like her beautiful mamma, she will wish 
always to please, and will lower her music to suit her 
hearers. We Germans have more respect for our art — or 
perhaps we are more selfish, and care less to please; it 
makes no difference to us, we go on playing our Bee- 
thoven, and if the Americans care not to listen, they can 
go out and whittle their sticks,” he concluded with a 
shrug. 

Katharine shared the Professor’s aversion to much of the 
popular music ; and yet she had a friendly regard for hand- 
organs, and her inborn love of simple melody was strong. 
The plantation-songs sung by her mother formed a part of 
her earliest consciousness, and a deep chord in her nature 
vibrated to all the negro melodies. 

She was sitting at the Brentanos’ piano in the deepening 
twilight of one February afternoon ; the Professor, appar- 
ently lost in some volume of dense German metaphysics, 
was scowling in his effort to concentrate the fading light, 
when Katharine began in a low tone to sing the “ Suwanee 
River.” She finished the first verse ; then the Professor’s 


GEJ^MANY LENDS A HAND. 


27 


voice thundered out : “ Miss Kennard, you shall not sing 
like that ; you are not a slave. It is terrible, that music ; 
I will not hear it. It is the melody of a broken heart and 
lost hope.” 

‘‘ I will not sing it again,” the girl answered, ‘‘ to you ; 
but do not think I shall forget it. I am nearly a woman 
now; I know what goes on in these United States. We 
Northerners may sing of our Star-Spangled Banners, our 
^ land of the brave and home of the free,’ of our Sweet 
Land of Liberty ; but we cannot suppress those great 
minor chords from the South. America has its school of 
music, bound in with a century of history.” 

Katharine had been reading one of Wendell Phillips’s 
speeches to her father the night before, and his powerful 
and pathetic eloquence echoed through her soul as it did 
through the souls of so many in that winter of 1861. 

Another branch of Katharine’s education beside her 
music was pursued with the Brentanos in weekly readings 
in German with Mrs. Brentano and Elsie. The Professor’s 
wife, a German lady of good birth and thorough education, 
had mingled with scholars and literary people in Frankfort, 
and she opened to the two young girls the richest treasures 
in the literature of her native country. 

Katharine hated French, — slippery and artificial, she 
called it; but the German, with its clumsy, expressive 
compound words, gave her great satisfaction. “What a 
genuine, simple, and hearty language it is, that calls ami- 
able people ‘ love- worthy.’ It ’s like dear Frau Brentano 
herself, such a motherly housewife, with all her learning,” 
Katharine had said at the beginning of her readings ; and 
as she became familiar with German literature she retained 
the same feeling. 

But Mrs. Brentano, even with the aid of the Professor, 
could not overcome Katharine’s aversion to Goethe — 


28 


ms BROKEN SWORD. 


Hermann und Dorothea ” alone excepted. The Professor 
once read aloud to her some of the most majestic passages 
from “ Faust.” 

‘‘Just listen to that, Fraulein Katerina! Where can 
you find anything like that resonant musical verse?” he 
exclaimed, with genuine German enthusiasm. 

But the obdurate Miss Kennard only replied : “ Very 
good as music, I admit ; neither do I question its claims 
as poetry. But the poet I cannot abide. Let us forget 
him, please, in a few pages from Schiller or Lessing.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


PRUNING-HOOKS TURNED INTO SPEARS. 



UT these talks on German literature did not 
come until Katharine was eighteen and had 
graduated from the High -School, and had 
looped up her braids and lengthened her 
dresses. It was the year after the war had broken out, 
and the country was still trembling under the shock of 
change and separation which followed. 

Mrs. Kennard, who had believed the South invincible in 
its power, was not to be convinced at this time that New 
York or Philadelphia was secure from danger ; and Kath- 
arine’s departure for an Eastern school was therefore post- 
poned. In her heart she was glad of an excuse to keep 
her daughter near her, for the war was a double-edged 
sorrow to Mrs. Kennard : her conscience was with the 
North ; but her sympathies were divided, and she was ap- 
palled by the chasm which had suddenly opened between 
her and her kindred. 

Notwithstanding the shadow of the war, Katharine 
found existence full of interest and enjoyment. Milwau- 
kee was alive with patriotic excitement. The sudden trans- 
formation of farmers’ sons and tradesmen’s clerks into sol- 
diers in gay uniform ready to die for their country ; and 


30 


HIS BROKEN SWORD, 


of her own intimate acquaintances into dashing young cap- 
tains and lieutenants ; the military companies passing 
through the streets, with bayonets flashing in the sun, 
and flags waving in the breeze to the inspiriting sound of 
martial music, — it was all most picturesque and thrilling 
to an imaginative girl like Katharine. Life began to seem 
an exciting chapter of history, with a thread of romance 
running through it. 

A “ Soldiers’ Aid Society ” arose and flourished, with 
Mrs. Kennard among the managers ; and Katharine, with 
all the young girls of her acquaintance, assisted with 
burning enthusiasm in the manufacture of garments for 
the soldiers, — yes, and even went so far as to insert 
a note in a pocket destined for hospital use ; a note of 
patriotism and encouragement, written with the hope of 
cheering and amusing some wounded soldier, and signed 

Rosalind.” 

Elsie Brentano, Queen of the Needle, took in tow a 
dozen or more of the inexperienced and frivolous maid- 
ens who excelled in blunders. “Remember, girls, the 
boys and the buttons always on the right side,” was an 
illogical but effective direction that came back to Kath- 
arine Kennard for years after, whenever she happened to 
be in doubt as to “ the button side.” 

The Aid Society also contributed a series of entertain- 
ments, in which the young ladies were brilliant and ac- 
tive participants. Talent and ingenuity hitherto latent were 
fanned into flame by the breezes of patriotism. Concerts, 
fairs, dramatic rendering of scenes from the “Widow 
Bedott Papers,” with other diversions, popular in attraction, 
but select in character, were given with unabating zeal ; 
even Katharine’s afternoons with the Brentanos were in- 
vaded, the German readings frequently giving place to 
musical rehearsals under the Professor’s direction. 


PRUNING-HOOKS TURNED INTO SPEARS. 31 

One spring morning a quiet wedding took place at the 
Brentanos’. Elsie had given her heart and promised her 
hand some months before. When her lover asked her 
consent to his joining the army, her instant resolve was not 
to deter him from any duty ; and silencing the outcry of 
her heart, she answered : “If you think it right, we must 
bear it; and all who go to the war do not die.” And 
she gladly yielded to his desire that the marriage should 
take place before the separation. 

The room was flooded with April sunshine when Elsie 
stood beside her soldier-lover and became his bride. Kath- 
arine was with her friend as bridesmaid, and shared with 
complete sympathy the mingled joy and sorrow of the 
hour. But oh, that sacrifice ! Could she give so much for 
any cause ? Was not one more to one than the whole 
world beside? To die, — that might not be so hard; 
but to give up one’s dearest, and then live on ! Katharine 
hoped that love would not come to her before the war was 
over. 

When Elsie, now Mrs. Vandyne, met with the young 
girls at the Aid Society next time, she seemed so removed 
from them, and to have advanced so far into womanhood, 
that they were not surprised to learn that all her prepara- 
tions were completed to leave home and go into hospital 
work during the absence of her husband. 

The Professor and Mrs. Brentano consented to give up 
their daughter ; but the home was very different when she 
was away. “Elsie was a good girl, always a good girl,” 
said the mother to Katharine ; “ and to those poor soldiers 
who will have her care she will be like an angel, so gentle 
and steady and strong. Elsie knows always what to do, 
and how to do it.” 

But Mrs. Vandyne was destined to one of those revolu- 
tions of emotion which form the tragic element in the 


32 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


unwritten history of every war. Within three months of his 
marriage, Lieutenant Vandyne fell in his first battle. 

When Mrs. Brentano wrote, urging her daughter’s return 
to Milwaukee, the reply came : No ; for duty does not 
end with happiness. It is best for me too that I stay here. 
The soldiers are dear to me for the sake of my own who 
is gone, and without work I should die. I have no time 
to think of my trouble. I remember, because remembrance 
lives in the heart through all else ; but my thoughts are 
occupied with the demands of each hour. My comfort lies 
in helping to save life and in the hope that I may turn 
sorrow like mine from other women.” 

Katharine Kennard, with her own courage and endur- 
ance untested, felt a passionate admiration for her friend, 
w'hose gentle nature proved so unswerving in fortitude and 
action. 


CHAPTER V. 

A LAST WALTZ. 

S time passed, and Washington still remained 
secure in the hands of the Federal Government, 
Mrs. Kennard’s fears as to the safety of Eastern 
cities in the North were dissipated ; and accord- 
ingly Katharine was established in a New York school in 
the autumn of ’63. 

The year that followed was an interesting and enjoyable 
chapter in Katharine’s life. The city itself charmed her. 
The morning walks along the beautiful broad avenues gave 
her fresh delight each day. The excursions to art-stores 
and picture-galleries opened a new sphere of pleasure and 
suggested broad avenues of future study. 

In New York also she first heard fine orchestral music, 
and experienced a sensation as if her soul had been set free 
to float upon an infinite ocean of harmony. The great 
waves of sound overwhelmed her consciousness of every- 
thing outside the mystic world of music. What was this 
inexpressible, thrilling influence, reaching her through the 
senses, yet etherealizing all thought and emotion? How 
could the mere transitions of tone in certain modulations 
give such sudden and exquisite pleasure ? Why should her 

3 



34 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


inmost being vibrate in answer to the something calling to 
her through the heaving billows of sound? Not to the 
domain of science, but rather to the Spirit-Land she turned 
for answer to these questions. 

“ Look at Miss Kennard’s face,” whispered one teacher 
to another at a Symphony concert ; did you ever see 
such an expression of perfect rapture ? It is as if she were 
looking into heaven itself. I wish that this slow, heavy- 
movement could send me into an ecstasy; but I’m too 
material,” and the stout teacher never discovered what 
Katharine heard in that music. 

Katharine spent her Christmas holidays with an old 
friend of her mother’s who occupied one of the beautiful 
houses on Madison Avenue. Mrs. Sheldon’s home was filled 
with young people, — college friends of her son, and school 
friends of her daughter ; and the young men and maidens 
revelled in the innocent pomps and vanities of this wicked 
world. 

Picturesque, graceful, and animated, the Western girl was 
extremely attractive and popular. Even when most digni- 
fied, the slight upward tip of her nose gave spice to her 
expression. Her little audacious remarks, in a low, clear, 
voice, amused the young men ; and there was something 
very engaging in her frank simplicity and her undisguised 
pleasure in trifles. Life was to her such an enjoyable expe- 
rience altogether that she unconsciously made it enjoyable 
for others. 

I don’t believe any girl ever had such a perfectly lovely 
time,” she said over and over during her visit. 

Brief snatches of flirtation passed between the young men 
and Katharine in the chance intervals between dressing, 
receiving, and going out; but though the youths were all 
somewhat fascinating, in the multitude of admirers there 
was safety. 


A LAST WALTZ. 


35 


Grandmother Sheldon, in her demure dress of Quaker 
gray, fell in love with this light-hearted girl, who more than 
once slipped away from the gay group in the drawing-room 
for a few moments with the old lady by the fireside in the 
library. As naturally and comfortably as a kitten, Katharine 
would curl herself up on the rug before the fire, lay her 
slender hands in Grandmother Sheldon’s lap, and with a 
few piquant touches give suggestive sketches of what she 
had been doing or seeing, or what was going on in the 
drawing-room. And one stormy morning, as the two had 
an hour together, the old lady opened a fascinating store 
of reminiscences of her own girlhood in New York, while 
the young girl’s bright face sparkled and dimpled with 
sympathetic interest. 

- Balls, parties, and operas followed in bewildering succes- 
sion. Whatever the globe might be doing, Katharine’s own 
world certainly revolved rapidly in those days. 

When ready for her first ball, Katharine wondered her- 
self at the charming reflection that smiled back to her in 
shimmering folds of silvery blue from the depths of her 
mirror. Every girl realizes a certain sense of added dignity 
and grace as she casts a fond glance over her shoulder 
upon her first train. Those superfluous yards of silk wield 
an impalpable influence over their wearer ; they have been 
thought of for weeks before ; in imagination she has heard 
their sweep and rustle ; they emblazon her right to play a 
part on the world’s stage. No doubt a reflection from 
that soft and shining silken train gave added light to 
Katharine’s eyes. 

The ball itself was a scene of bewildering enchantment. 
The radiant lights, the alluring music, the delicate, pervad- 
ing perfume of the flowers were in themselves suggestive of 
all imaginable delight. The lovely women in ethereal and 
dazzling toilets, floating with the undulating movement of 


36 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


the music, reminded Katharine of a bed of flowers swaying 
in the breeze. 

“ And then my heart with rapture thrills, 

And dances with the daffodils,” 


she whispered. She felt herself a part of this beautiful 
fantasy. 

The evening was so dreamlike in its fleeting hours and 
brilliant variations that afterwards Katharine could not recall 
the half of her partners. She remembered Sir Edward 
Beresford, whose English blue eyes opened wide with sur- 
prise when he learned that he was dancing with a native of 
Wisconsin. Nor did she forget a certain Major Allston, her 
partner in the last waltz. “This is a farewell dance for 
me,” he had said at its close. “ My furlough expires, and 
I start to rejoin my regiment to-morrow ; and you will easily 
believe that I shall remember this last waltz.” 

Katharine thought of Lieutenant Van dyne, and a note of 
the funeral dirge was heard above the music of the dance. 
But, like Elsie Brentano, she reasoned, “ All who go to the 
war do not die ; ” and handing the Major a tea-rose bud 
from her bouquet, she said, “ Let me give you this flower for 
good luck and a safe return.” 

For a moment her hazel eyes were lifted to his with a 
look of sweet seriousness and sympathy that photographed 
itself on the young soldier’s memory. The charming girl 
in her shining silk was unheeded, as he recognized a 
woman quick to feel for others. It was a pair of good 
honest gray eyes that looked down upon Katharine as 
Major Allston said good-night and good-bye, with a smile 
that seemed to envelop her in its warmth. As he left her 
with Mrs. Sheldon, the young man wondered if that serious 
look came into Miss Kennard’s eyes because some one 
very dear to her was in the army. 


A LAST WALTZ. 


37 


Katharine had never appreciated Milwaukee as she did 
after her return from New York. “ Fifth Avenue is all very 
well — very magnificent, I mean ; but what can any city 
offer to compare with dear old Lake Michigan ? It gives a 
deeper music than any written symphony ; and as for beauty 
— no painting can compare with this living, moving picture. 
How did I ever live away from it for ten long months ! ” 
she exclaimed, looking rapturously over the plain of blue- 
green water, with its breaking waves curling into crests of 
dazzling whiteness. 

“ Kathie, dear,” said her mother, “ stand off ; let me 
take a good look at you now that you are out of that dusty 
travelling-suit. Yes, you are all right. I knew that New 
York would be the place for you. You have learned how 
to carry yourself, you have gained style ; and your hair is 
just lovely done in that way. Now, John Kennard,” and 
she turned to her husband, “ lay down that newspaper and 
look at Katharine, — she is infinitely more interesting than 
the war-news. And I want you to admit that your daughter 
is improved. There ’s no place in America like New 
York to bring out a girl’s good points,” she concluded 
with candid complacency. 

The Doctor obediently laid aside his newspaper and 
surveyed Katharine in silence from her crown of golden- 
brown hair to the tip of her dainty little boot. 

“ Don’t mind mamma ; you will make me feel as if I 
were one of Mrs. Jarley’s wax- works, being looked at and 
discussed with this unblushing frankness,” protested Kath- 
arine, slipping her hand within her father’s arm. 


CHAPTER VI. 


STAR-SPANGLED BANNER, AND BONNIE BLUE FLAG. 

this time, the summer of 1864, the war had 
become the background of national life in the 
United States. Not a village so small but its 
numbers were reduced ; not a family so insig- 
nificant but its interests were affected. The passing whistle 
of an idle boy was a reminder of “ Dixie Land ” or of 
“John Brown’s Body ; ” the organs in the churches pealed 
forth “ My Country, ’t is of Thee,” the organs in the streets 
droned out “ Kingdom Cornin’.” 

Little fellows not out of frocks personated generals and 
played at war, emulating in ideals the actualities of their 
fathers or brothers ; good-for-nothing ne’er-do-weels so- 
bered up and enlisted, and happily in many cases died for 
the cause, thus securing through Government the support 
they would never have earned for their families ; men who 
for thirty or forty years had lived unsuccessful and un- 
noticed, sprang into prominence, and discovered them- 
selves leaders and heroes whose names would shine in 
history. 

As in the vegetable kingdom the heat of a tropical sun 
warms into active development every seed and germ of life, 
so the all-pervading fire of enthusiasm excited and vital- 



STAR-SFANGLED BANNER. 


39 


ized the latent mental and moral forces among individuals. 
Fortunes as well as reputations were created with marvel- 
lous rapidity ; unscrupulous sharpers were quick to seize 
opportunities for large personal gains ; but in the general 
fusion of small individual aims with one great purpose, a 
vast amount of selfishness was melted away, and many slug- 
gish springs of sympathy were set flowing. 

In this sudden illumination of character, crystals sparkled 
in every pebble. Deeds of valor shone out as stars, even 
in the dark valley of the shadow of death, — that black 
canvas against which every battle-scene is painted. Silent, 
patient, and unyielding as the Sphinx, the great general of 
the North pressed his siege ; steadily the victorious army 
was marching on, while Northern soldiers were starving in 
Southern prisons, while stronger and blacker grew the great 
wave of destruction and desolation passing over the South. 

But old Mother Nature took no interest in all these 
temporary commotions. She might be unsympathetic, but 
she was trustworthy, and attended to all her duties. Sun- 
shine fell bright and clear as ever; the quiet hills and 
mountains lay enfolded in purple haze, and sea and lake 
lost none of their morning ripples and sparkles, nor of their 
silvery shimmer in moonlight. Men of the South and men 
of the North might fire away at each other ; all the same 
Nature took good care of the great reservoirs from whence 
flow the springs of human action. Battles might be fought, 
but the homes must be bound together by the old stand-by 
affections. This war would soon be over, and meantime 
here was a whole generation of American babies to be 
looked after and preserved for times of peace, and not all 
the American girls were engaged to marry soldiers, or could 
be nurses in hospitals. And so, notwithstanding the cloud 
over the country, in countless homes the essential elements 
of family life, though modified, were not displaced. 


40 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Both Dr. Kennard and his wife took an active interest in 
the Soldiers’ Home, then such a prominent adjunct of 
Milwaukee, and both did their share of thinking and work- 
ing for the soldiers. Mrs. Kennard never forgot the South- 
ern relatives so dear to her, but the Doctor’s home was 
cheerful and serene. Katharine’s presence seemed always 
to pervade the house ; one could usually trace her by some 
musical sound, — a ripple of laughter, a fragment of song, 
a burst of melody from the piano, unless she happened 
to be absorbed in reading. 

Not long after Katharine’s return from school there 
appeared one morning on Mrs. Kennard’s lawn a small 
colony of negroes, who through fortunes of war had drifted 
from the Maryland Benton estate out to Milwaukee. Their 
greeting to the lady of the house was the confiding an- 
nouncement : “You see. Miss Florence, ole Mammy there 
remembers you when you was a gal down to Baltimore. 
She used to wait on you a heap, she says, and so 
we ’ve come up yeah for you to take care of us.” Mrs. 
Kennard instantly faced the situation in her calm, cheerful 
fashion, extended a plump white hand to “ ole Mammy ” 
in cordial welcome, and on the spot became the patron saint 
of the little community. 

Fortunate would it be for the country if the whole negro 
problem could be solved in separate solutions instead of in 
the mass. Beyond the difficulty of teaching them the ele- 
mentary fact that free people must take care of themselves, 
Mrs. Kennard had but little trouble from her charges. She 
easily opened opportunities for their self-support, and her 
kindly interest in their affairs, her practical common-sense 
suggestions, were a constant encouragement to them. 
Katharine tendered her services as teacher of the rudi- 
ments to the “ colored persons ” who cared to avail them- 
selves of the opportunity. There was little difficulty with 


STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. 41 

the younger ones, but teaching the elders was like boring 
into cotton. 

One young woman, the fortunate possessor of a husband, 
was ambitious of learning to read before her children should 
be old enough to estimate her ignorance. Valiantly she 
toiled in the face of difficulties for some time. One day 
she encountered an unusually puzzling combination of 
letters : “ L-o-v-e, — what does that spell, Miss Katha- 
rine?” she asked. At the reply her black eyes rounded 
with astonishment. With mingled indignation and con- 
tempt she protested : “ Love, that spell lovel Just only 
four letters ? Well, that ’s a mighty poor way of spelling love 
accordin' as I knows it ! ” and disgusted with the appar- 
ent inadequacy of printed language, she closed her book, 
never again to open it. One by one all, except the chil- 
dren, followed her example. The light-hearted, ignorant 
boys and girls were faithful to their clever young mistress, 
whose very presence seemed to sharpen their dull wits and 
to impart life to the dead letters in their books, while 
Katharine was genuinely interested, and found the droll 
little darkies a source of no end of amusement. 


CHAPTER VII. 


WIDENING VISTAS. 


“ Day by day ... to her much she added more. 

In her hundred-gated Thebes every chamber was a door, — 
A door to something grander, 

Loftier walls and vaster floor.” 


many another girl fresh from boarding- 
Dol, Katharine marked out a course of read- 
to be pursued at home. It may have been 
natural affinity with the thoughts of her 
own time and country that guided her choice of books ; at 
all events it was her father’s case of New England authors 
that exhibited the tell-tale vacancies. The Doctor’s quietly 
observant eye traced his daughter’s onward steps by the 
succeeding empty spaces in his shelves. 

An early riser in the summer mornings, Katharine se- 
cured a quiet time for reading before breakfast. During 
these fresh first hours of the day she studied her Emer- 
son with the devotion of a saint, opening her vigorous 
young mind to his heroic philosophy, and tingeing it with 
an enthusiasm all her own. Emerson’s sublime indiffer- 
ence to the magnificence and display of the world, his 
steadfast belief in gi-eatness of soul and in personal charac- 
ter and power, thrilled her. It dawned upon her that right 



WIDENING VISTAS. 


43 


here in Milwaukee might be found the best that the world 
could give ; that the most valuable things are the natural, 
the simple, the universal. 


“The sun, the heavens, and God, 

What nobler than these three?” 

Plain characteristics such as honesty and industry shone 
with new lustre as she discovered in them the bands that 
rivet domestic and national prosperity ; more apparent to 
her became the unalterable connection between sowing 
and reaping ; firmer grew her faith that in her own hands 
lay her own destiny. As iron is taken into the blood, her 
mind assimilated these invigorating beliefs. She began to 
discriminate between the essential and the accidental, the 
transient and the permanent. 

This same philosophy might have been gleaned, the same 
inspiration gathered, from another source. Long ago in 
Sunday-school Katharine had learned “ by heart ” the 
Sermon on the Mount. For years on Sunday she had 
listened to sermons on things temporal and things eternal, 
and had been told that all things were possible to them 
that believed ; and, like all good girls, she read her Bible. 
But accepted as religious truths, these things had been set 
apart as something sacred, belonging to the spiritual life, 
the silver rounds of a ladder leading away from earth to 
heaven, rather than considered as vital forces in the life 
that now is. 

As no one before, Emerson opened her eyes, not only 
to the simple truth and beauty, but to the practical every- 
day usefulness, of the principles of the Christian religion. 
She perceived in Christianity pre-eminently a method of 
life, not merely a system by which happiness here or here- 
after is secured. She learned to believe in the union of 
the divine with the human in every man and woman, to 


44 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


reverence human nature, and to have faith in more than 
was apparent in the most commonplace individuals. This 
influence was evident in a certain elevation of thought re- 
cognized by Katharine’s friends ; but she quoted neither 
Scripture nor philosophy. 

It was at this time that Margaret Fuller began to trouble 
the waters of this Western girl’s soul, firing her with intellect- 
ual ambition and energy, and indicating new worlds to be 
conquered. And it was Thoreau who was the companion of 
Katharine’s thoughts when her walks led her away from the 
lake and into the woods, as she learned to look for beauty 
and to find it in every phase and expression of Nature. 

Mrs. Kennard did not care for New England literature, 
and the Concord circle was ruled out whenever mother and 
daughter read together, as they often did. 

Books of travel that awakened reminiscences of Mrs. 
Kennard’s stay in Europe gave her unfailing pleasure, and 
they led, of course, into many incidental studies in art. 
It was in this connection that Mrs. Kennard brought out 
her husband’s love-letters, written during the period of her 
absence in Europe. These precious epistles were wrapped 
in silver paper, tied with blue ribbon in a true-lover s 
knot, and when unfolded they exhaled a faint odor of 
English violets. Mrs. Kennard read them aloud, — a some- 
what tantalizing process to her listener, as the mother 
conscientiously skipped what Katharine called the most 
interesting parts. Katharine knew how fascinating those 
passages were by the way her mother’s dimples appeared 
and lingered, and the soft light that came into her face as 
she silently perused long paragraphs ; and never a begin- 
ning nor an ending to one letter did the daughter hear. 

For that sort of thing Katharine was forced to turn 
to novels and romances, where she was taken into the 
confidence of all the prominent actors. She had her own 


WIDENING VISTAS. 


45 


preferences among them; her heart did not respond to 
the joys or woes of all. Shirley was one of her favorite 
heroines ; she delighted in the courage, independence, and 
spirit of the Yorkshire girl. Katharine read rather slowly, 
and in complete oblivion to all surroundings. 

Many a long hour of enchantment she passed in Rome 
with the Marble Faun people ; and her heart yearned to- 
wards Miriam when deserted by Hilda. She felt herself in 
Rome, too, when her eyes grew misty over the pathetic 
little story of Tolla. 

Far away into old Egypt she wandered, and entered with 
intense interest and sympathy into the tragic history of 
Hypatia ; but she rose to the surface again, and breathed 
the air of every-day life with Jane Austen’s commonplace, 
natural English people. To her George Eliot was supreme 
in the realm of novelists, and Romola the ideal woman 
in fiction ; though Maggie Tulliver, with all her endearing 
impulses and weaknesses, was most beloved. However, 
Katharine did not live by books alone, or depend upon 
imaginary people for companionship. 

Mrs. Kennard introduced her daughter into society with 
a brilliant lawn-party during the full moon of August ; and 
before the first snow had fallen, Katharine’s social relations 
were becoming definite. She was indispensable in any 
entertainment given for the soldiers, and the adored teacher 
of a flourishing class in Sunday - school ; parties were a 
source of delight without alloy ; old acquaintances were 
renewed, and new ones formed. No one quite filled the 
place of Elsie Brentano in Katharine’s affections ; but Mrs. 
Vandyne was still devoted to hospital work, and had not 
been seen in Milwaukee since, as a bride, she left the city. 
Katharine had ardently desired to join her friend in hospital 
work for one year at least, but Mrs. Kennard would not 
listen to that proposition for a moment. Like most fond 


46 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


mothers, she believed it her duty and within her power to 
protect her darling from all danger. Her sensitive, sympa- 
thetic, highly organized daughter must never know what 
suffering this world contained ; she must be guided only 
through green pastures and beside still waters. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?** 



URING Katharine’s absence in New York a 
young lady from the west side of Milwaukee 
had come into the neighborhood of the Ken- 
nards, and taken the position of organist in St. 
Mark’s church, where the Doctor’s family attended service. 

Had Miss Dora Crissfield practised medicine instead of 
playing the organ and teaching music, she would inevitably 
have been socially filed and docketed among the strong- 
minded. Her choice of a feminine occupation saved her 
from that doom. 

She was tall and broad-shouldered ; her elastic hands 
seemed to spread out all over the organ ; her carriage was 
erect, her movements free, every gesture indicating self- 
reliance and decision. Her style of dress in dark, heavy 
fabrics, fashioned with severe simplicity, emphasized her 
somewhat masculine appearance. 

Her skin was smooth and dark. Heavy dark brown hair 
growing low on the forehead was brushed straight back 
from her face. A frank and fearless spirit looked out from 
clear eyes of a nondescript color beneath straight, dark eye- 
brows. Her nose was handsome ; her rather large, expres- 
sive mouth opened wide when she spoke, and disclosed a 


48 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


row of strong, white, even teeth. A full, finely modulated 
voice was perhaps her greatest attraction. Miss Crissfield 
was a successful teacher, and at seven and twenty was sat- 
isfactorily solving her section of the problem of woman’s 
independence. Her private parlor, the second-floor front- 
room in the house where she boarded, was a delightful, 
home-like apartment, and the bay window commanded an 
attractive view up the street and out upon the lake. 

On a certain Sunday afternoon early in November a 
young man sat beside Miss Crissfield on a low seat that 
lined the interior of the window. 

“Is it possible you have not met Miss Kennard?” the 
young lady was asking. 

“ I may have met her and forgotten her ; I don’t profess 
to remember half the girls I meet. But you must recollect 
I do not go to church, as she perhaps does ; neither do I 
patronize the military entertainments, in which young ladies 
are conspicuous attractions ; and I have attended no parties 
this winter. But what is this young lady like ? Give me a 
description.” 

“ Yours to command,” replied his companion j “ but I 
don’t spoil a friend’s chance of making a good impression 
by descanting beforehand upon her charms and virtues.” 

“ You leave me to infer that she is charming and virtu- 
ous. She is not, then, a rank abolitionist, for they are never 
charming ; and perhaps she does not sing war-songs. Is 
she an accomplished coquette ? ” 

“ Nothing of that sort ; and don’t you dare attempt a flir- 
tation with her.” 

“ Forbidden pleasures are invariably tempting, Dora. Is 
she literary? ” 

“ Not oppressively so.” 

“The usual American superficial culture, I conclude. Is 
she one of your saints? ” 


WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR? 


49 


“ One of my saints ! I’d like you to define what you 
mean by ‘ one of my saints.’ But I will tell you that Kath- 
arine is good, — not pious, you know ; I believe I have more 
affection for the real sinners than the pious. Katharine’s 
religion is the kind that makes girls lovable. She does n’t 
keep her golden rule shut up in her prayer-book six days 
in the week, to be taken out and aired on a Sunday and 
then put back again for safety; she carries it with her 
always. She uses her spiritual graces as if they were natural 
gifts, — in the same inadvertent way as you, for instance, 
exercise your natural depravity.” 

Joe Irvington looked a little amused as he fondly stroked 
his mustache, which was very blond and very silky. 

“ Is it natural or acquired depravity, Dora, that makes 
you invariably hard on me?” he asked. 

“ A little of both, I suspect. Some way, I always do feel 
tempted to say teasing things to you ; ” but the glance that 
she gave him was tempered with a touch of gracious, 
motherly indulgence. 

“ ‘ Who loves teases,’ you know,” he quoted with a 
glance of quiet audacity. 

“No nonsense with me, if you please ; ” and Miss Criss- 
field looked out of the window with an unmistakable change 
of expression. 

“ I will be good,” promised Mr. Irvington, “ if you will 
resume your subject. You have not yet told me if Miss 
Kennard has beauty.” 

“You and I would never agree as to what constitutes 
beauty.” 

“ Is she a belle in society ? This is positively the conclu- 
sion of my catechism.” 

Dora paused a moment to consider that question before 
replying. “ No, not in the usual acceptation of the phrase. 
She seems rather to prefer ladies to gentlemen. I ’ve seen 

4 


50 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


her at a party go right up to a group of wallflowers in her 
bright, unconscious way, and in ten minutes she will have 
them all talking, and so enlivened that the young men are 
glad to join them ; and then, likely as not, Katharine will 
quietly move off with the very shyest and stiflest of the mas- 
culine reinforcement. In fact, bright as she is, she never 
seems to discover how insufferably dull stupid people are.” 

You have sketched a sort of social missionary, Dora. 
I think I prefer a woman of your style.” 

“Wait and see,” concluded Dora. “I shall be interested 
in what you will have to say of Katharine after your ac- 
quaintance commences. Here she comes, with the Ger- 
man violinist whom she promised to bring with her. The 
Kennards do not object to music on Sundays. Mr. and 
Mrs. Edwards are coming in from the next room to pre- 
serve the proprieties ; I ’ll see that you have an opportunity 
to study Miss Kennard.” 

Where Dora Crissfield was presiding genius, constraint 
and formality were strangers. Within ten minutes her 
guests were all congenially adjusted. Mrs. Edwards was 
settled, to her satisfaction, in a comfortable arm-chair, with 
an entertaining novel ; in the bay window the young hos- 
tess carried on a light, desultory conversation with Mr. 
Edwards ; and Irvington, near them, joined in the talk, or 
was a silent listener and observer, as inclination prompted. 
Miss Kennard and the violinist, playing together one of 
Mendelssohn’s concertos, were conscious of nothing beyond 
the music in which they were completely absorbed. When 
the duet was ended, in answer to an entreaty from Mr. 
Voss, Katharine continued playing, without noticing that all 
conversation gradually ceased. Sometimes the soft, caress- 
ing movement of her fingers drew tenderest response from 
the full-toned piano, as if the soul within the instrument 
had found expression ; then again her clinging, magnetic 


WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR? 


51 


touch fused composer, instrument, and player, and the 
music seemed drawn out of the girl’s heart, to find its way 
directly to the hearts of her listeners. She did not render 
music like that without being herself deeply moved. 

Mr. Voss stood watching her, his whole face radiant with 
enjoyment. 

“ Are such musicians often found among American 
players?” he asked Katharine when the music ceased. 

“ Why, how do the German ladies play?” she questioned 
in reply. 

“ They put years of work into their music, they develop 
a good technique, but often they lack inspiration; they 
just miss the ineffable essence. I have heard other Amer- 
ican ladies deficient in the thorough training evident in 
jour performance, but yet their music was delightful, in a 
way that disarms criticism ; the execution might be un- 
skilful, but the whole effect was suggestive, poetical, fas- 
cinating, like a sketch in drawing. It is the • character of 
the composition that is conveyed to the mind, regardless of 
detail. They give one the thought of the composer, and 
do not mind a few false notes dropped by the way.” 

“That is just what is the matter with my exasperating 
pupils, they don’t mind a few false notes dropped by the 
way,” interrupted Miss Crissfield. “ Mr. Irvington accuses 
the whole race of American women of being superficial ; 
and I am afraid we are lacking in the staple qualities of 
patience and perseverance.” 

“ Your varied accomplishments would amaze your Ger- 
man sisters ; you are so independent, so widely informed, 
familiar with science, philosophy, and politics like men ; 
writing for the papers and expressing convictions on all 
conceivable subjects ; dressing so beautifully, as if you had 
just stepped out of pictures, — for you are as artistic in 
your tastes as you are indomitable in your energies.” 


52 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Mr. Voss gave this brief eulogy on the American woman 
with refreshing enthusiasm. 

And yet/’ said Katharine, complimentary as you are, 
I see in your eyes a little reservation.” 

“ That is your American penetration. I will confess that 
I was wondering if one could find many Dorotheas among 
you, — many girls as true and tender and womanly, with 
so much of simplicity and courage.” 

“How would our Evangeline compare with Dorothea? 
AVe can scarcely call Evangeline a typical American girl ; 
but you too have selected a poet’s ideal,” suggested 
Katharine. 

“ Evangeline is a fair comparison,” was the ready ac- 
quiescence, “ and she was a true-hearted, noble woman ; but 
not a child of Nature like Dorothea. Had Evangeline 
gone to Boston she would have been interested in its 
museums and libraries, — she might have become a trans- 
cendentalist ; but Dorothea would have gone through the 
streets of Boston untouched by its complex civilization. 
She might have wondered why the women wore such a look 
of care and responsibility ; but she would have said of the 
libraries and museums : ‘ Ah, yes ! we have still larger ones 
in German cities ; they are for the students and artists.’ ” 

“ Perhaps we are both thinking of the face in the fa- 
miliar engraving of Evangeline, rather than of the poet’s 
conception,” added Katharine. 

“ And when you take a Mrs. Voss to sit by your fireside 
you will be content only with a Dorothea, we conclude,” 
interposed Mrs. Edwards, glancing up from her novel to 
Mr. Voss. She had contrived all along to follow the thread 
of her story, hear the music, and keep trace of the con- 
versation. 

“ That would be like water after wine,” was Irvington’s 
comment in an undertone. 


“ WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?'' 53 

Do say something original, Joe,” murmured Dora in an 
aside. 

“I am studying Miss Kennard. I can’t determine 
whether or not she is pretty : her face is always changing 
so that it defies analysis ; but she is fine-grained, is n’t she, 
with those hands and feet and hair? ” 

“ Sh-h-h ! how dare you ! But ‘ those hair ’ are beautiful.” 

“ Well, you engage the violinist’s attention, and I will 
continue the conversation on Goethe’s characters with 
Miss Kennard.” 

“ At your peril ! she detests Goethe.” 

The young man crossed over to Katharine as Miss Criss- 
field addressed a remark to the violinist, and the change of 
combination was effected. 

^ “ You seemed to enjoy Mr. Voss’s playing very much,” 
began Irvington. 

“Yes, indeed; wasn’t it delicious? I always enjoy a 
violin doubly when accompanying it with the piano. Mr. 
Voss is very entertaining in conversation also. He has 
been in America for two years, and has lived in England ; 
but I fancy that he has seen more of men than of women, 
— at least he apparently regards our ladies as novel and 
interesting specimens of humanity.” 

“ Perhaps he finds every lady novel and interesting in 
herself. Is he not the proprietor of the new music-store 
recently opened here? I noticed the name Caspar Voss 
on the sign.” 

“ Yes, his name must be Caspar ; that takes me back to 
the days of my childhood, and the Christmas-stories trans- 
lated from the German, with always a Karl or Caspar as 
hero. I can see the pictures of them now, — little square, 
stubbed figures, with broad, cherubic faces. I was always 
fond of those German children.” 

There was something very winning in the girl’s uncon- 


54 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


scious, unreserved manner ; she still sat on the music-stool, 
and one hand lay white and delicate against the dark case 
of the piano. Her eyes rested upon the face of her com- 
panion ; he had already decided that she possessed a charm 
more attractive than beauty. 

Mr. Irvington deliberately levelled an incisive, subtle 
glance into Katharine’s eyes, remarking at the same time : 
“ If Mr. Voss heard your last assertion, he may regret that 
he is no longer a German child.” 

The words were nothing, but Katharine flushed with 
peculiar embarrassment and annoyance ; however she con- 
tinued, to avoid a pause, — 

I think it a pity that the nice little German boys ever 
need grow up. The few German and French men of edu- 
cation whom I have met I ’ve found delightful in their 
exquisite politeness ; but I have an impression that not- 
withstanding the fine sentiment suggested by their defer- 
ential manner to women, their lives are — materialistic.” 

Mr. Irvington did not care to resist the temptation to ask : 
** Shall I infer that you are not an admirer of Goethe? ” 

Katharine’s eyes darkened as she replied : ‘‘ I do not un- 
derstand how any American woman can admire that man.” 

You admit, nevertheless, his transcendent genius, his 
princely nature? ” 

You are severe on princes ; and genius is not everything. 
I cannot forget his vanity ; that stealthy, cruel thing which 
fastened its fangs on the hearts of innocent, loving women, 
which found its gratification in blasting the happiness of 
those who trusted him. I have less respect for the great 
German poet than for an ignorant shoemaker who is loyal 
in his affections.” 

The words were accented by a ring in the girl’s voice 
which stirred Irvington’s admiration. 

I perceive that you are a young lady of independent 


WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?*' 55 


opinions : but are you not a severe judge ? A strain of the 
old Puritan inflexibility must be coursing through your 
veins. The New England standard of life is a Procrustean 
bed which stretches or lops off limbs, regardless of the pain 
inflicted. Is it not better to take a wider view, to be toler- 
ant, and not to pass judgment upon things that must 
remain wholly foreign to one’s own experience? ” 

Katharine had a morbid dread of narrowness in judg- 
ment, and accepted this arraignment in silence ; notwith- 
standing an intuitive repulsion, she listened, interested, as 
Irvington proceeded : We think our standpoint the only 
standpoint. Take our religion : we have been taught 
that the Christian is the only true religion, and yet, back 
from the ages come to us now other religions that have 
ipoulded the lives of more of our race than have ever heard 
the word ‘ Christian.’ Beside Christ stands Buddha. Both 
lives were sublime ; both uttered words immortal because 
forever true ; both inspired men to look beyond to-day into 
eternity. How can you or I say which was the greater? 
Where lies our right to judge between them? ” 

Had the man known Katharine from childhood he could 
not more skilfully have aimed to make an impression on 
her mind. He entered where the opening was all unguarded. 
He spoke slowly, in a low tone, and for a moment the girl 
beside him was fascinated and subdued. Were her old 
views so limited? could the old religious landmarks be 
indefinitely extended? 

The light was fading, but Katharine saw as well as felt 
that Irvington’s eyes were in possession of her face, and 
she divined that he was reading her thoughts. She resented 
this intrusion of a stranger ; involuntarily she turned to the 
piano for refuge, and broke the momentary silence that had 
fallen upon the room with the opening strain of Flee as 
a Bird to the Mountain.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


AN INVOLUNTARY INCENDIARY. 

the occasional meetings that succeeded this 
introduction there was always something marked 
in Irvington’s manner towards Miss Kennard. 
However light the surface appeared, Katharine 
was conscious of an undercurrent, and was never secure 
from encountering the peculiar, inexplicable look which at 
once disturbed and held her. Very much refined was the 
original savage, predatory instinct of the man ; but it was 
his dominant, unrelenting characteristic. He was a young 
lawyer not long in practice, but his older colleagues already 
recognized the merciless grip with which he seized any 
chance victim who fell in his way in legal prosecution. 

“ He is predestined to the office of State attorney, and 
will enjoy hunting down a criminal as a terrier hunts a rat,” 
said the old lawyer with whom he had studied. 

“ You do not know what mercy or humanity is ; you 
would have made a first-class burglar or crook yourself,” 
a bold thief whom Irvington had convicted contrived to 
say as he was taken past the lawyer on his way to jail. 

A Democrat, with pro-slavery bias, his sympathy was 
with the South rather than the North. He did not con- 
sider the cause on either side worth fighting about. This 




AN INVOLUNTARY INCENDIARY. 


57 


patriotism was sheer nonsense ; but as long as war opened 
a channel for ambition, men would be found ready to cast 
life and fortune into the stream. He held his doubts as 
lightly as his beliefs ; he was equally indifferent to Christ 
and to Buddha. All religions were to him but so many de- 
lusions, acting on humanity like positive forces, but still 
mere phantom creations of the brain. 

For years Mr. Irvington and Miss Crissfield had known 
each other, and had developed an odd sort of intimacy, an 
informal camaraderie absolutely free from anything border- 
ing on sentimental relations. Miss Crissfield saw his best 
qualities and brought out his best points, never taking him 
seriously, and treating him with an independence that would 
have surprised his mother. 

^ “ You never rasp a man’s disposition, Dora,” he said to 
her one day. And yet she kept him within bounds. 

Once he attempted to look at her in the manner that so 
embarrassed Katharine. Did Dora’s eyelids fall, and her 
color change? She simply opened wide her honest eyes 
and steadily returned his gaze, until they both laughed, and 
Irvington himself colored and turned away. Neither of 
them said a word ; but it was a little experiment that the 
man did not care to repeat. 

At his first meeting with Miss Kennard, Irvington was at- 
tracted and interested ; and he involuntarily sought to gain 
an ascendency over her, to influence her thoughts and emo- 
tions, without reflecting that the enterprise might involve 
risk to himself. Every chance encounter increased this 
interest, and the encounters were not always by chance. 
The young man fell into the habit of thinking of her in 
business hours. At any time out of the depths of the 
dullest, driest law-book might appear a pair of hazel eyes, 
now with a look of alluring gentleness, and again with a 
glance of half-veiled coquetry. Strains of music that she 


58 


HIS BROKEN SWORE. 


played remained with him ; over and over again he was 
haunted by the appealing refrain, — 

“ Flee as a bird to the mountain.” 

One cold afternoon, when the holidays were approaching, 
Mr. Irvington walked briskly up to St. Mark’s church, where 
Miss Crissfield had informed him the young ladies of the 
congregation were to be employed in decorating the sanc- 
tuary for the Christmas festival. A pungent odor of pine 
and fir greeted the lawyer as he entered the church. The 
air was vibrating with the full closing chords of the Christ- 
mas anthem which the organist was practising. The young 
man glanced around to survey the different groups of 
workers and to note the individuals of whom they were 
composed. As he paused, the anthem died away in faint 
reverberations, through which the voices of the ladies 
emerged. Miss Crissfield turned from the organ and gave a 
broad smile of welcome to her friend below. 

In response he joined her with the remark, “ How pretty 
the young ladies look in their dark dresses and white aprons ; 
but their animated vivacity is not in harmony with the sacred 
edifice and the ‘ dim, religious light.’ ” 

“ TAere is one who has no white apron, and is silent as a 
statue ; ” but her companion’s eyes had already detected 
the individual to whom she alluded. 

On the summit of a step-ladder stood a slight figure in a 
long, closely fitting dress of dark-purple cashmere. The 
face, slightly turned, was raised towards a large cross of 
evergreen, and one hand rested upon the foot of the cross. 
The graceful outline, the ivory-like face, in contrast with 
the deep rich color of the drapery, the delicate line of 
creamy lace encircling throat and wrists, — every detail of 
the picture was taken into Joe Irvington’s heart. 

What an exquisite Saint Katharine ! ” he whispered. 


AJV INVOLUNTARY INCENDIARY. 


59 


Just then the figure, unaware that her movement destroyed 
a tableau, turned, with the prosaic request, ‘‘ Will some one 
be kind enough to drive a nail for me ? I can’t make this 
arbor- vitae stay in place.” 

With a hasty, “ Excuse me, Dora,” the young man 
deserted the organist for the saint, while Miss Crissfield 
retained her position, and with a look of quiet amusement 
observed the proceeding ; and Katharine from her elevation 
serenely smiled on her approaching cavalier. 

Am I to come up beside you ? ” he asked, waiting at 
the foot of the ladder. 

“ Yes, if you will. The ladder is strong, and you can 
stand on the step below me ; I will hold the fractious ever- 
green in position while you fasten it. I am not skilled in 
driving nails.” 

“ But you are skilled in the more feminine accomplish- 
ment of flinging darts under Cupid’s direction,” he mur- 
mured. “ I know that by experience,” he added, as she 
made no reply. 

A flush of color protested, but a dimple appeared in 
forgiveness of his audacity. But Katharine was for the busi- 
ness in hand, and gave the young man the hammer with 
the caution, “ Now please don’t mistake my finger for the 
nail.” 

‘‘Not for the universe,” was his emphatic assurance. 
However, some movement jarred the ladder, the hammer 
swerved, and the full force of the blow fell upon the girl’s 
finger. For a moment she was blinded with pain ; every- 
thing reeled around her, and her figure swayed as if about 
to fall. 

“ Hold her, Joe ! ” called Dora in a startled voice, just 
as the young man threw his arm around his companion and 
steadied her against himself. It was but a moment before 
Katharine recovered her poise ; but her color did not return,. 


6o 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


and she did not understand her own agitation. Mr. Irvington 
seemed to have taken possession of her, assisting her down 
the ladder as if she were his own ; and the wounded hand 
was relinquished with evident reluctance. 

Once firmly on the floor, the young girl laughed lightly at 
the accident, although the rapid discoloration of the finger 
told its own story. 

“ The question now is, whether my finger was too small 
to be visible, or too large to be avoided ? I shall cherish the 
former delusion,” she said nervously. “ But some one must 
fasten that piece of evergreen, for it dangles worse than 
ever ; and I ’m not going to venture into that perilous 
position another time.” 

And then, with a sudden change of resolution, she con- 
trolled her nervousness and added : “ I believe that I will 
try it again. Come, Mr. Irvington, let us retrieve our 
failure.” 

“ Don’t trust Mr. Irvington another time ; he is neither 
mechanic nor Churchman,” interposed an orthodox voice ; 
but the warning was unheeded. 

It was with difficulty that Irvington could control his 
voice to speak in a natural tone. His keen chagrin over 
the blunder, mingled with sympathy for the pain given 
Katharine, was sufficient to disturb him deeply; but in 
addition, the fleeting moment when his arm was around 
her, and his face was touched by her silken hair, — this 
sudden personal contact enthralled his senses, quickened 
every pulse, and sent the blood rushing tumultuously through 
every vein. And now her proposition gave him a delicious 
thrill of pleasure, as he interpreted her simple words into a 
pledge of her confidence in him. 

Nothing was farther from her thoughts. Her finger 
pained her acutely ; and as she feared that fact was evident, 
this move was merely a little stratagem to divert attention. 


AJV INVOLUNTARY INCENDIARY. 


6i 


The next operation, left-handed on Katharine’s part, was a 
success, at once securing the perverse arbor-vitse, and dis- 
pelling the remembrance of the mis-directed blow from the 
minds of all but the two directly concerned, and Miss 
Crissfield, ,who understood Katharine. 

However, the incident was not so slight as it appeared, 
for the hand of Saint Katharine had applied a match to 
tinder. Mr. Irvington’s responsibility for the bruised finger 
justified him in sending a basket of magnificent roses to 
Miss Kennard the next day, and a cordial left-handed 
note returned thanks with perhaps unnecessary warmth; 
but it was written on Christmas Eve, when Katharine’s 
lieart was overflowing with good-will towards men. 

As the lawyer read this note he no longer regretted his 
blunder or the pain he had given Katharine ; he smiled in 
self-congratulation over the long step taken towards estab- 
lishing an intimate acquaintance with the object of his ad- 
miration. The pretext afforded for delicate attentions was 
improved to the utmost. The way was opened for frequent 
and informal calls during the convalescence of the injured 
member, of whose complete recovery Mr. Irvington ex- 
pressed grave doubts even after a tender pink nail had 
replaced the former occupant. 


CHAPTER X. 


PURSUIT. 

HE young lawyer patronized a New York tailor, 
and was scrupulous in details of toilet. His 
blond person never failed to evince the most 
careful attention ; and he set a high value upon 
a patrician effect in his appearance, suggested by Nature 
and sedulously cultivated by himself. 

As a gentleman he was only a well-veneered article, but 
he was not aware of that himself ; and inexperienced judges 
of human nature usually took him at his own valuation. 
Older heads appreciated his keen intelligence and recog- 
nized in him a certain tough fibre and ability to command 
success ; and though noticeably lacking in candor, he had 
the reputation of being an honest man. 

When Mr. Irvington rented a seat in St. Mark’s church 
and appeared therein with commendable regularity, no 
surprise was occasioned in the congregation ; the phenom- 
enon was accepted as a tribute to the talent and spiritual 
fervor of the popular rector. The seat occupied by the 
lawyer was across the aisle, and one line in front of the 
pew from which Mrs. Kennard and her daughter were rare- 
ly absent. The young man seldom faced the rector, but 



PURSUIT. 


63 


secured the corner of the seat, and a position somewhat on 
the diagonal in relation to chancel and aisle ; thus command- 
ing a view of several tiers of faces otherwise out of his range 
of vision. Sunday after Sunday he quietly carried on his 
siege, and deliberately cultivated his passion. 

Not so marked in his observation as to attract atten- 
tion or to justify any resentment on the part of Katharine, 
he yet contrived to keep her always conscious of his pres- 
ence. He offered his admiration as most delicate incense, 
but made it felt, nevertheless. Occasionally, when he 
chanced to encounter her eye, he would send her a swift 
penetrating glance laden with meaning, and would glean 
his answer from her rosy flush or the nervous movement 
of her flexible lips. 

A wave of genuine, reverent tenderness often passed over 
the man’s heart as he looked upon this young girl while she 
knelt during prayers, with bowed head that left only a line 
of white forehead bordered by gold-brown hair visible 
above her clasped hands. At such times she seemed 
scarcely within his reach ; a vague uneasiness at his own 
unworthiness would disturb him. He almost wished for her 
sake that he were a better man, better than he thought 
any man. He half resolved never to attempt to under- 
mine her religious belief, even confessing that it was an 
added attraction ; and he admitted that the one who said 
“ A woman without faith is like a flower without fragrance ” 
spoke truly. 

When she was his own, he intended always to be kind 
to Katharine, more kind than he was to his mother. Un- 
doubtedly, now and then, he should pierce her tender 
heart with the stinging sarcasm which was his favorite 
weapon, to make her feel his power over her, — that sort 
of thing was necessary with all women ; but he should 
be indulgent, and take good care that she lost none of the 


64 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


happy light from her eyes, or the bright animation from 
her manner. 

He found her face a most fascinating study. He 
wondered at the odd freak of Nature that had given 
that slightly tip-tilted nose to a girl with a strong affinity 
for Emerson ; for nothing could be more foreign to trans- 
cendentalism than that little piquant, worldly, retrousse, 
feature, — and yet it was this same inconsistent nose that 
gave an indescribable charm to her expression. 

He knew no other woman so refined and elegant, so 
gentle, and yet so spirited. Few in St. Mark’s congrega- 
tion worshipped more fervently than did the lawyer. 

At the close of service he joined his goddess in the aisle, 
and often accompanied her mother and herself to their own 
door. It mattered nothing to him if it were known that 
he was devoted to Miss Kennard. She was a good match, 
and he meant to win her, and he never doubted his power 
to achieve anything he willed to accomplish. Mrs. Ken- 
nard evidently regarded him with favor, and he early de- 
cided that if a man must have a mother-in-law, a more 
agreeable one than Mrs. Kennard could not be made to 
order. 

He was not mistaken in thinking that the Doctor’s wife 
liked him. Mrs. Kennard would have felt cordially to- 
wards any one who expressed sympathy with the poor 
dear South. It was such a comfort to her to hear a kind 
word spoken in defence of her still-beloved “ native land,” 
as she always called it. 

But for all the apparent smoothness of the high-way, 
Irvington’s suit did not progress, as the winter slipped by, 
altogether to his satisfaction, although he could not define 
even to himself what retarded his advance. If Miss Ken- 
nard were at home when he called, she was rarely alone. 
She might smile and dimple, and' her conversation sparkle 


PURSUIT. 


65 


in the most distracting fashion, forging new links in the 
chain that held her lover captive ; but it was all only tan- 
talizing when divided among a half dozen or more. Irving- 
ton never liked to feel himself but one of many, and 
Katharine gave no proof of recognition of any particular 
claim on liis part. 

On the other hand, when the two chanced to be alone, 
his influence over her was unmistakable. He could sway 
her thoughts and kindle or subdue her animation at will, 
cause her eyes to fall, and her color to deepen ; and if 
occasionally she seemed to resent this power and to assert 
her independence, he knew well how to undermine the 
defences with some gentle appeal or tender reproach. 
And yet there was something in the young girl that eluded 
his grasp ; he was not certain that he had touched the 
key-note of her nature : and therein lay half her fascination. 
The first instinctive desire to assert his power over a girl 
who attracted him had yielded to the simple, elemental 
desire to possess the woman whom he loved. Nor did 
Katharine fail to influence her lover. Her candid nature, 
her high ideals, her unconscious unworldliness, all produced 
a temporary effect. Whatever was base and cruel in him 
instinctively refrained from contact with her, and his whole 
moral nature breathed a purer atmosphere in her presence. 

At times Katharine almost believed that she loved this 
man. She recognized the sort of understanding that he as- 
sumed to exist between them ; she felt, without interpreting 
his unspoken love. Now strongly attracted, even willingly 
yielding to his influence, again feeling that their natures 
were wholly foreign, and could never be brought into har- 
mony ; now seeing only the man’s better nature, and 
again repelled by a glimpse of the evil lurking within him, 
the girl drifted on, little dreaming with what force the cur- 
rent already claimed her. 


5 


66 


HIS BROKEN SIVORD. 


When, one evening in March, the crisis was developed, 
and Mr. Irvington asked Katharine to become his wife, the 
direct proposal threw a flash of illumination across the 
baleful power that had magnetized and entangled her, and 
produced a violent recoil. She felt that she would rather 
die than yield herself to that man ; and she despised her- 
self that she had allowed this offer of marriage to become 
a possibility. 

It was a stormy wooing, imperious and imploring, tender 
and reproachful by turn. Below the torrent of his passion 
Katharine felt the strength of the man’s determination. 
Love and will had combined to force her suirender. She 
was terrified by this tempest of emotion ; she suffered cruelly 
in the misery she was inflicting : but stronger than fear, 
deeper than sympathy, was the intense aversion created 
in herself. The excitement nerved her into an unnatural 
calm ; her resistance was firm, her refusal absolute. 

When at last the battle was over and the victor alone in 
her own room, she was completely exhausted, and more 
wretched than ever before in her life. Sleep was effect- 
ually banished ; and with the realization of her own security 
came a more vivid appreciation of the suffering she had 
caused. It was living, palpitating anguish that she had 
seen in his eyes as her lover turned from her finally, with 
no word of farewell. The remembrance was unbearable ; 
for never before had she knowingly or willingly inflicted 
pain. When morning broke, a deep sympathy had soft- 
ened the outlines of Katharine’s stem attitude towards her 
suitor ; and when evening brought a note from Mr. Ir- 
vington, courteous and delicate, begging pardon for the 
unguarded expressions he had used in their last interview, 
exonerating her from all blame, and asking that their friend- 
ship might be resumed, and that one episode forgotten, — 
what could Katharine, with her generous spirit, do but 


PURSUIT. 67 

reply, that if her friendship could make reparation for an 
unintentional injury, it should be freely given. 

Of all the delusions of youth, what more subtle and 
dangerous than friendship after a refusal or a broken 
engagement? 


CHAPTER XI. 


UNREST. 

was midsummer, and the war was over. 

One April day, like a bed of crocus under 
the warm sun, the whole North had suddenly 
burst into blossom, flaunting in every breeze 
its thousands upon thousands of flags and banners and 
streamers, its mile after mile of festoons of the national 
colors. Bunting, flannel, cambric, muslin were called into 
service ; the fabric mattered little so long as the red, white, 
and blue were displayed. 

Lee had surrendered ; the North was victorious. Hearts 
lightened, eyes brightened, in the glad anticipation of peace. 
But while the symbols of victory and rejoicing were yet un- 
faded, they were suddenly withdrawn ; and in their places 
drooped the dark emblems of mourning. The triumphal 
march was merged in the requiem. The parting shot from 
the Rebellion had pierced the heart of the North, and 
struck from its pedestal the central figure of the nation. 

This great dramatic climax of the war had passed into 
history ; the apple-blossoms of May had fallen, the roses of 
June had faded, and July came, bringing a scorching heat 
not often felt in the lakeside city of Milwaukee. It was 



UNREST. 


69 


after sundown ; but regardless of the hour, the mercury was 
disporting itself in the region between the eighties and the 
nineties, when Mrs. Kennard came out on her piazza. 
No evidence of the high temperature could be discerned 
in* that lady’s appearance ; her dress of snowy lawn swept 
in long, soft folds behind her as she moved in her usual 
unhurried manner ; her sweet, dark face showed no altera- 
tion in its ordinary peachy tints ; she slowly waved her 
sandal-wood fan to and fro, more because she liked the 
odor than for the air it stirred. As she paused a moment 
to fan the Doctor, who leaned back in an armchair, pale 
with heat, and perspiring at every pore, her glance fell upon 
her daughter. The girl rested languidly beside one of the 
pillars of the porch; her eyes were clouded with a look 
very like trouble, and a faint, perpendicular line appeared 
between her eyebrows. She looked away off over the lake, 
as if mutely questioning — Destiny ? 

“ How the heat wilts you two Northerners ! Here am 
I, just luxuriating in this delicious Maryland weather, while 
under my very eyes my husband is melting away, and my 
daughter fading into the ghost of a girl ; even her smiles 
have evaporated under this day’s sun.” 

I wonder if it can be the weather, or what, that de- 
presses me so ? I don’t feel at all like myself,” Katharine 
exclaimed, rising, and moving restlessly, as if to escape from 
her mother’s observation ; but she tossed a reassuring smile 
back over her shoulder as she wandered off down among 
the pansies in the garden. 

Now I have an idea, John,” said Mrs. Kennard, fixing 
her soft brown eyes upon her husband’s face. “ I am going 
to send you and Katharine off ; you are to take a trip up 
to Lake Superior, and you are to go right away. You 
haven’t a single patient in a critical condition just now, 
and you can leave, if you only think you can.” 


70 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Thus did this amiable matron lay down the law to her 
well-trained spouse. 

“ What a refreshing suggestion, my dear ! ” responded the 
Doctor. “ But you know I never leave my wife, and that 
hospitable woman happens to be riveted at home just at 
present.” 

‘‘ You have touched the very reason why I want you to 
go to Lake Superior now ; I should never go there with 
you, to expect to be drowned every minute. Cousin Eva 
will be here to keep me company, and you don’t like Eva 
Benton, — you never did ; and Kathie does n’t care for 
her, either. So this will be what I call a fortunate com- 
bination of separation, and you had best seize your chance 
before it escapes you.” 

I would rather look at your eyes than at all the pic- 
tured rocks in the world,” said the Doctor, evading the 
subject in hand. 

Now Mrs. Kennard enjoyed a compliment just as much 
at five-and-forty as she did at twenty ; and as the Doctor 
himself liked to indulge in these little embroideries on do- 
mestic intercourse, he had never lost the habit of express- 
ing his admiration of his wife. But Mrs. Kennard was not 
to be turned from her purpose. 

You are a dear old lover,” she continued, but you 
must remember that you happen to be a father also ; and 
have n’t you noticed that something is the matter with 
Katharine ? She positively mopes, and seems like another 
girl ; I hope it is n’t " concealment ’ that is ^ feeding on her 
damask cheek.’ I fancy that Mr. Irvington has something 
to do with it ; but she has peculiar notions about discussing 
love affairs, and does n’t offer me her confidence. There 
was some trouble last March, I know ; but that seems to 
have worn off, and he certainly has shown enough devotion 
recently. I don’t believe that you like Mr. Irvington as 


UNREST. yj 

well as I do? ” queried the lady, poising her fan in mid-air 
as she awaited a reply. 

‘‘ Has he been growing devoted recently ? I did not 
know that. I do distrust the man. I have not interfered 
in this affair because I did not suppose that Katharine could 
think of Mr. Irvington as a lover ; but I have noticed that 
she seems worried and disturbed of late, and no doubt a 
change would do her good.” 

Just then Katharine returned within hearing, and gath- 
ered enough of the talk that followed to infer what plan 
was under discussion. 

“ Papa,” she said, seating herself beside him, “ if you can 
take me off on the lakes for a week or two, I wish that you 
would.” 

She spoke without enthusiasm, but as if she had some 
decided reason for wishing to go ; and her words had instant 
weight with her father. 


CHAPTER Xi;i. 


OVER THE WAVES AND FAR AWAY. 



O be away from Irvington, far away from every- 
thing associated with him, to get outside of 
herself, if possible, was the longing that now 
possessed Katharine Kennard. 

Once fairly out of sight of Milwaukee, as the propeller 
ploughed its way across the undulating level of Lake 
Michigan, Katharine could not rest until her father had 
taken her up on the hurricane-deck, and she was perched 
in one of the little life-boats there secured. With the limit- 
less blue sky above her, and the limitless plain of trembling, 
scintillating water around her, stretching far into the dis- 
tance on every side, she realized a delicious sense of 
release and freedom. Now she should be able to see 
clearly ; now her old self-reliance and independence would 
return. That restless, wavering, impressible girl so fa- 
miliar to her consciousness of late, that incomprehensible 
phase of herself, at once feared and distrusted, should be 
banished. 

The Doctor, after the manner of man, strolled off to take 
a look at the pilot-house, and fell into conversation with 
the keen-eyed old man at the wheel. Half an hour elapsed 


OVER THE WAVES AND FAR AWAY. 


7S 

before Katharine was rejoined by her father, who imme- 
diately perceived an alteration in the girl’s expression. 

“ You seem to take to the water like an old salt,” he 
remarked. 

“ You mean like a naiad or a mermaid. How do 
you know but ages ago some dashing young Kennard 
stole a pretty young naiad for his bride? And why 
may not I have a touch of the nature of that far-away 
ancestress? ” 

The Doctor looked into his daughter’s upturned face, 
into the eyes lifted to his with such confidence that he 
would understand even her nonsense, then turned away 
with a puzzled expression as he replied : “ I have not the 
slightest idea how many varied natures or complex elements 
are fused in the one piece of womanhood that is named 
Katharine Kennard. A man naturally expects that he is 
going to understand his own child, and probably cherishes 
the belief that he does understand her. But some fine day 
he is sure to discover that she is as much a mystery to him 
as are all others of her baffling sex. Now I should really 
like to know why a girl of twenty, with a mother like yours, 
fails to repose confidence in that mother, or to ask her 
advice in any worries or troubles.” 

This unexpected attack brought a tide of crimson over 
Katharine’s face. 

“ Perhaps I have been wrong in that ; but I simply 
could n’t. Nobody knows better than I do how sweet and 
lovely mother is ; but you know she has all along liked 
Mr. Irvington, and rather favored his attentions to me. I 
wanted something to brace my resolution instead of weak- 
ening it. If you only knew what a temptation it has been 
to me when I ’ve been all worried and perplexed, and 
mother so serene and sympathetic, just to talk the whole 
matter over with her ! But I knew all the time how she 


74 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


would hush my true convictions, and make it all the harder 
for me in the end.” 

This was very clear to the Doctor, who began to have a 
clew to the actual state of affairs. 

“ Then why did you not come to me ? You and I have 
always been good friends, have n’t we ? ” he asked. 

“ Oh, papa ! ” she said, and she bit her lip, I did 
want to go to you ; but then, — don’t you understand ? — I 
knew that you did not like Mr. Irvington. It seemed so 
unfair to him that I should put his fate in your hands when 
I knew perfectly well that you have always disliked him. 
I might have told both you and mother — perhaps that 
would have been best ; but it was dreadful enough to have 
to keep thinking first of one side and then the other, and I 
could n’t endure the idea of having it all talked over.” 

‘‘Then your father’s opinion was not to be allowed 
weight in an important matter of this kind ? You preferred 
to be quite independent, and to rely on your own 
judgment? ” 

“ Your opinion did have weight with me ; it has been 
my blessed anchor all this time. You can’t think that I 
would ever say yes to him without your approval ? It fs no 
that I have been saying. For some reason, Mr. Irvington 
does not seem to like you altogether, and I felt that the 
least I could do for a man that I refused was to conceal 
his defeat from a man whom he did not like, and who did 
not like him. If I must wound his affection, I could spare 
his pride. Could you ask me to do less? ” And two very 
bright tears stood in the girl’s eyes as she asserted the 
purity of her motive in concealment. Those shining tears 
proved weapon as well as shield, and it was the assailant 
who surrendered unconditionally. 

“Ah, Katharine, poor girl, you are a brave and loyal 
little soul, fighting your battle alone in order to protect 


OT^jEH the waves and far away. 


your foe ! But it was a risky experiment. And now I 
want to know if Mr. Irvington is finally disposed of.” 

Oh dear no ! ” sighed Katharine ; “ I must refuse him 
once more. But this shall be the end.” 

Katharine began to realize how every vestige of uncer- 
tainty as to what she would do had disappeared. Once 
the subject was opened with her father, it was an inex- 
pressible relief to give him the whole situation; and 
she proceeded : — 

“ You remember Mr. Irvington was with me when you 
came home last evening. But to go back a little : I re- 
fused him last March, and I supposed that he understood 
my answer to be final. Then he wanted to be friends with 
me, and for a time he was very guarded ; and I really liked 
him better than before. That misled him, and one evening 
last month he offered himself again. When I refused him 
a second time he was very gentle, but he would not accept 
my decision ; he told me that I did not know myself half 
as well as he knew me, or understand my own heart half 
as well as he understood it ; and in answer to my assurance 
that things could never be as he wished, he only smiled, 
and said, ‘ Little bird, there 's no use in your resisting ; I 
shall have you for my own some day.’ 

“ Those words have just haunted me ; I felt as if the iron 
hand in the velvet glove had seized me. Every time that 
I heard a bird sing I would hear his voice saying, * Little 
bird, there ’s no use in your resisting.’ Since that inter- 
view I have successfully avoided him, until last evening he 
took me quite unawares. You know how oppressive the 
air was ; the doors were all open, and I happened to be at 
the piano. I did not hear the door-bell : he may have 
thought I might refuse to see him ; at all events, the first 
I knew there was a rap of announcement on the open 
library door, and there was Mr. Irvington. He was very 


76 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


entertaining at first, and gave me an amusing account of 
his trip up to Lake Superior last year, and of the odd 
people on board the steamer. I was soon laughing, and 
feeling quite at ease ; but the room was very warm, and I 
thought that I heard mamma on the piazza, so I proposed 
going out there. 

“ The moonlight was beautiful ; but no one was on the 
piazza, and I saw that I had made a false move. I knew 
that gas-light was safer than moonlight. It wasn’t five 
minutes before — well, he did not really say so much ; 
it was the way that he said it. He told me that he was 
waiting and hoping, that he cared for nothing else in life, 
that I was all in all to him. I knew that was so ; and all 
at once, someway, a great wave of sympathy almost swept 
away my resolution, and I hesitated : I wondered if after 
all I did not care for him, and if I had not been battling 
with myself instead of against him all this time. 

He must have perceived my faltering, for he spoke then 
with new confidence, and said that he believed I was be- 
ginning to read my heart aright ; that he was ready to leave 
his fate in my hands, for he knew I would find that I could 
no more live without him than he could live without me ; 
that he wanted me to feel perfectly free while away with 
you, but when I returned he should come again. I dared 
not trust myself with him longer, and only said, ‘ I do not 
want you to come again ; it will be useless. Good-night.’ 
But he caught my hand and detained me long enough to 
whisper, ^ I shall live on hope ; you will learn to read your 
heart aright.’ And then, before I could protest, he was 
gone. 

“Now to-morrow I am going to write to him and tell him 
that I have learned to read my heart aright, and that I 
find it contains no longer even friendship for him. I never 
will see him alone again.” 


OFEIi THE WAVES AND FAR AWAY. 


77 


As the Doctor listened to this revelation he realized far 
more than Katharine did what danger she had passed 
through. 

“ You have been playing with fire,” he said. “ Irvington 
is no man for a girl like you to deal with. He has a ter- 
rible will, and no doubt can be wily as Satan. Write your 
letter as you propose. I should write in your place, except 
that Mr. Irvington had best know that it is your own de- 
cision. Then you must leave the matter in my hands; 
I shall see that this affair is ended.” 

The letter mailed at Mackinac was brief and uncom- 
promising. Its spirit was that of Katharine’s New England 
grandmother. It shot like a poisoned arrow through the 
heart of Irvington, embittering all his affections and stinging 
into cruel activity his baser nature. 

By the time the letter had started upon its fateful mis- 
sion the Montgomery ” had passed through the Straits of 
Mackinac, skirted the northwestern end of Lake Huron, 
turned northward through St. Mary’s River, and entered 
upon the vast and beautiful waters of Lake Superior. 
Down, down, down, through the transparent waving eme- 
rald one could clearly trace the pebbles on the sands 
below. Distance in that wonderful atmosphere was like 
distance in that water, to be in no way calculated by the 
inexperienced. Points and objects on shore apparently 
just beyond, proved to be miles away, receding as the 
steamer advanced, illusive as the “Isle of O’Brazil.” 

But the enchantment that seemed ever to bring the 
distant near, acted inversely with relation to Katharine’s 
recent experiences. Where were the emotions and agi- 
tations of three days ago ? Already they seemed years 
back in the past. These magical waters and azure skies, 
this little company of new acquaintances, were the realities 
of to-day. And how soon they had all become familiar ! 


78 


HIS BROKEN SWORD, 


Even the Indians who appeared at every landing, bringing 
their little square birch boxes of raspberries or big bunches 
of winter-green, were hailed as friends and brothers. 

Dr. Kennard early opened acquaintance with the young- 
est passenger. When advances were made in the form of 
a request that the mother should lend him her child, the lady 
first enveloped the infant in one of those absurdly fond 
looks, in the possessive case, which mothers are prone to 
bestow upon their first offspring, then gave the Doctor a 
swift glance of inspection, then warily demanded, — 

“What do you wish to do with her?” 

“ I wish to entertain her, if she will allow me.” Words 
and manner so deferential and conciliatory won the confi- 
dence of mamma ; and as Miss Baby offered a smile and 
two plump little hands, she was relinquished to the stranger. 
Thereafter all who came on board mistook the Doctor for 
baby’s papa ; the genuine parent contributing to the illu- 
sion by an unconquerable tendency to sea-sickness. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


A TRANSPLANTED BOSTONIAN. 

PURE can ’t disguise me by calling me Smith ; 
but I suppose I must not hold Nature re- 
sponsible for my married name, — except in 
allowing me to fall in love with Jim. Fancy 
an Elinor Beverly degenerating through matrimony into an 
Ella Smith ! And my husband will call me Ella ; it ’s a 
striking instance of the descent of woman.” 

Such was the outburst of confidence made to Miss Ken- 
nard within the first fifteen minutes of her acquaintance 
with the lady who was early recognized as the social star 
on board the Montgomery.” Petite, an animated fashion 
plate in costume, with a dramatic manner, with velvety 
black eyes and warm olive complexion, a very creole to all 
appearance, Mrs. Smith was yet in fact a Bostonian by birth 
and education. 

One shy, round-shouldered, faded-looking young man, 
who screened his diffidence by silence, watched Mrs. Smith 
by the hour. With head inclined to one side he would 
hold up an ear to catch her chance words, while an uncon- 
scious smile gradually overspread his face. When Mrs. 
Smith once addressed him directly, his smile tightened 



8o 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


into a convulsive grin, and a painful blush suffused his 
countenance as he stammered an incoherent reply. 

“ He reminds me of the classic, but time-worn, ‘ friend, 
Roman, and countryman ’ lending an ear,” remarked the 
object of this auditory effort. 

Honored with a seat at the right hand of the captain, the 
little lady entertained those at her end of the table with off- 
hand sketches of her housekeeping experiences in Iowa. 
The captain, whose appreciation of Mrs. Smith’s conver- 
sational efforts was summed up in the single comment, 
She ’s as good as a circus any day,” relished with double 
zest descriptions in which she was the central figure, 
as she touched herself off with an airy abandon reserved 
only for personal application. Mrs. Smith declared that 
her married life in Western wilds had been a succession of 
domestic tragedies, going on to explain, First, the cook 
left, and I had to seize the culinary helm in order to save 
us from starvation. Of all uncertain things in this life, 
commend me to cooking ! Ah ! Captain Nicholson, my 
cake would have wrung tears from your eyes. Actually, 
when I took it from the oven and looked down into the 
depths of the pan, it was like looking into a grave, — the 
grave of blighted hopes. I told Jim so, and his hollow 
laugh but mocked my misery. Then he tried to console 
me by saying that though it was a lost cause as cake, it 
would answer as a pudding, — and it did ; and for blighted 
hopes it was n’t so bad, after all. I never knew what was 
the matter with the thing : Jim said it lacked flour ; but 
what does a man know of cooking?” 

Here the one super-serious and dignified member of the 
party, a Methodist judge, demanded : “ Madam, are you 
not aware that the finest cooks in the world are men ? ” 

Mrs. Smith returned a brief look of blank inquiry ; then 
gayly conceded : “ Oh ! you mean Frenchmen. I don’t 


A TRANSPLANTED BOSTON/AN 


8i 


call them men. You surely can’t expect me to call frivo- 
lous, weak-minded cooks, dressmakers, and milliners men, 
— not in any broad sense of the term? ” 

She had uttered the word “ broad ” with most expansive 
accent ; then, looking solemnly up at the judge, she de- 
veloped her climax to the dignity of man by slowly adding ; 
“ Not men as you call yourself a man. Judge? ” 

As the dignitary so addressed preserved a discouraging 
and slightly chilling silence, Mrs. Smith turned nonchalantly 
away and sweetly smiled on her ally, the captain, who at 
once encouraged her to proceed. ‘‘Tell us something 
more, Mrs. Smith ; you have given us only the inscription 
on one of your tombstones. We want to go through the 
whole cemetery. I never saw Judge Berry so interested.” 

“ Yes ? ” the lady queried, betraying a touch of Boston, — 
“ I was not certain. Judge Berry’s flattery is so delicate 
as to be scarcely discernible. Let me see, let me see, — 
what did come next? Oh, yes ! The next thing, Gustavus 
ate the canary. I cried over that, for Brignoli sang di- 
vinely, and I heartily wished that he had eaten Gustavus ; 
but unfortunately one can’t reverse the laws of Nature, even 
to make a bird eat a cat. Then I cherished a hope that 
Gustavus would sing ; but no, he only had a convulsion. 
Yet, after all, it was n’t the actual tragedies that were hardest 
to bear; they at least had the merit of excitement,” con- 
tinued Mrs. Smith reflectively. “ The real test of endur- 
ance lay in the ceaseless round of daily drudgery in the 
interval between cooks. Judge, did you ever wash dishes ? ” 
And turning her blazing eyes full upon him, she actually 
startled him into replying seriously — 

“ No, madam, I never did.” 

“ I might almost have known that,” she affirmed with a 
half-apologetic smile. “You will never know what you 
have escaped. My husband knows what it is. Every other 

6 


82 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


evening for three long weeks he had to do it before he was 
allowed to retire ; every other evening I did it ; and the 
intervening evenings,” she concluded recklessly, “ we did 
it together.” And summarily deserting the cemetery, she 
turned to play with the baby. 

The daring flippancy of this small person was securely 
anchored to the most substantial, middle-aged, solid re- 
spectability in the persons of Mr. and Mrs. Davis, from 
Dubuque, under whose protection her husband had placed 
her during her journey to Boston. These guardians re- 
garded their charge with the amused tolerance with which 
a family cat regards a frolicsome kitten. 

By what dark device Mrs. Smith induced Mr. Davis to 
include this divergence into Lake Superior in their trip 
towards the East, Mrs. Davis never discovered ; her hus- 
band warded off any inference as to weakness of the heart 
by allusions to disorder of the organ upon which the value 
of life is said to depend, and upon wliich Lake Superior 
air has a beneficial effect. 

As the steamer advanced on her way across Lake 
Superior, November came out of the West and silently 
vanquished summer. The air grew cold; the clear sky 
was densely overcast ; the lake was dark and opaque, roll- 
ing into heavy, snowy crested billows. The rich dull 
colors of the water, too gray for malachite, too green for 
agate, and yet suggesting both; the musical breaking of 
the waves, in which myriads of imprisoned sounds seemed 
seeking release ; the distant shore, with its border of vary- 
ing verdure skirting the southern horizon ; the long lines of 
dark clouds melting into one another overhead ; all chang- 
ing with every passing moment, — held Katharine’s attention 
with exciting fascination. The mystery of it was, that in 
the midst of all this never-ending sound and movement one 
should be conscious of an influence of unfathomable repose. 


A TRAA^SPLANTED BOSTONIAAT. 


83 


Wrapped in her heavy Scotch plaid of dark blue and 
green, Katharine sat for hour after hour in the bow of the 
boat beside Mrs. Smith, who, enveloped in a shawl of 
Oriental richness, made the one visible dash of brilliant 
color. 

The party of Canadians who had come on board ac- 
cented the changed and Northern aspect of the surround- 
ings. Katharine would have welcomed a group of old 
Vikings as the proper climax to the transformation. 

As evening approached, the clouds gradually melted into 
one soft gray canopy which lowered nearer and nearer the 
water, hiding the shores and shrouding the waves until all 
before them lay a dense bank of white fog. Into this they 
entered, and as the chill mist settled around them, the most 
intrepid of the water-lovers gladly took refuge in the cabin. 

However, when during the evening the steamer neared 
Marquette, the ladies again ventured out on deck. The 
fog was impenetrable. They could see absolutely nothing, 
even after they could plainly hear voices talking on shore, 
and poultry waiting to be shipped cackling on the docks. 
The steamer scarcely seemed to move, so great was the 
caution of the captain, who by the aid of sounds and sound- 
ings was feeling the boat’s way in the dark. The fog- 
whistle, calling every moment, was answered constantly 
by one at the lighthouse, which gave out the most dismal 
wailing warnings. The darkness seemed alive with sounds, — 
the blowing of the whistles, the plashing of the water, the 
calls of the captain, and their echo returned by the man at 
the wheel, the compound . of noises from the shore ; and 
below all these a low, steady undercurrent of song surging 
up from a group of sailors in the hold. 

All at once out of the darkness one light appeared like a 
veiled Mercury ; ten seconds later they were in the midst 
of lights, — magic lights in the fog, with no more visible 


84 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


means of support than the stars in the heavens. No town, 
no houses, only lights so near as to seem almost within reach 
of one’s hand. 

As the ropes were thrown out and the Montgomery ” 
grated heavily against the dock, dim outlines of warehouses 
appeared, with moving shadowy figures hovering about. 
There had been no danger, but every one drew a breath 
of relief when the motion of the boat ceased. 

Mrs. Smith, who had been undisguisedly nervous, re- 
vived into a state of cheerful animation as her sense of 
security returned. 

“ Such an eerie experience is enough to make one see 
ghosts for a month of Sundays,” she exclaimed. “After 
all this bewildering voyage in cloud-land, some one must 
take me on shore. I am going to feel my feet on terra- 
firma before I sleep.” 

“ My dear Mrs. Smith,” expostulated Mrs. Davis, “ you 
surely don’t mean what you say. No one wants to fumble 
around through this fog with you in a strange town.” 

“ You think no one will go with me ? Oh ! you ’re mis- 
taken ; ” and she made a movement in the direction of her 
shy and silent admirer. But the gentleman — whose name, 
by the way, was Wackershouser — turned somewhat sud- 
denly and entered the cabin. 

“ I ’ll take you with pride and delight,” volunteered 
the Doctor ; “ I am going to buy a bottle of ink for my 
daughter.” 

Five minutes later, Katharine, looking through the mists 
to the dock below, caught a glimpse of Mrs. Smith’s face, 
damp and rosy, with hopelessly demoralized “ crimps ” 
straying across her forehead. 

Mr. Wackershouser, a prey to embarrassment and remorse, 
had taken flight to the seclusion of his stateroom, and was 
seen no more that night. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


DIVERSIONS. 

UT the bleak Northern waters were exchanged 
for fairyland when the “ Montgomery ” left the 
wide sweep of Lake Superior and entered the 
narrow, curving channel of the Portage River. 

Close beside the stream, down into its very edge, grew 
straight, tall reeds and grasses ; bowing over into the flowing 
current dipped blossoming branches of trees and sprays of 
vine, as the land caressed the water ever on its flight from 
her light touch; the water in return tossed back pale 
wreaths of mist that leaned lovingly against the hillsides 
before floating away in movements light and graceful as a 
band of dancing nymphs. 

This poetical river, expanding at one point into a lovely 
lake, then narrowing again until the steamer nearly grazed 
the shore in passing, formed the copper-tinted avenue of 
approach into a most unpoetical region. But the haunts 
of the brownies lie near to fairyland the world over ; 
and though the steamer cast anchor at the foot of the most 
bleak and desolate hill, standing in bare outline against the 
sky, what wealth and wonders lay hidden underground, 
deep in the heart of that rugged exterior ! 

That the passengers of the Montgomery ” interviewed 
the brownies and magicians who gather and transmute the 



86 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


treasures, was proved by the trophies carried off when the 
boat once more began threading her way towards Lake 
Superior. By far the most beautiful of these souvenirs was 
in possession of Mrs. Smith. When Mr. Wackershouser 
offered it with blushing diffidence she dropped for the mo- 
ment her coquetry as she gave him her hand and thanked 
him in a gentle, sisterly way. 

This overture went far to melt the ice on Mr. Wacker- 
shouser’s part ; he even mustered courage next day to ask 
Mrs. Smith and Miss Kennard to go upon the upper deck, 
as the Apostles’ Islands were coming into view. The islands 
lay encircled in a setting of radiant blue, for the heavens 
were cloudless and the water was still, — a state of nature 
that induced Mrs. Smith to tip her hat over her eyes at a 
desperately inclined plane. 

When he had the ladies comfortably settled on the shaded 
side of the pilot-house, Mr. Wackershouser entertained 
them with bits of early history. He pointed out to them on 
Madeleine Island the little chapel that still stands, — the 
lone monument of the missionary spirit which raised the ban- 
ner of the Romish Church in those distant waters while the 
Puritans were sowing the seeds of Calvinism along the 
shores of New England. 

“ Are n’t there more than twelve of the Islands? ” Kathar- 
ine asked as the afternoon wore on and fresh tracts of 
verdure broke the smooth expanse of water. 

“ There are twenty-four, the captain tells me,” Mr. Wack- 
ershouser replied. 

“Perhaps they allowed each Mr. Apostle a Mrs. A.,” 
suggested Mrs. Smith. 

“ Possibly,” returned her admirer ; “ but another incon- 
gruity appears in the fact that not one of them individually 
bears the name of an apostle.” 

“ You forget poor Judas,” rejoined Mrs. Smith. “ Was 


DIVERSIONS. 


87 


he not called a devil, and is n’t there a Devil’s Island among 
these water-bound Apostles ? But the others will scarcely 
envy Judas the distinction of that association.” 

The last of the islands was still in sight when evening 
fell ; and when the “ Montgomery ” was retracing her course 
towards Chicago the next night under the starlight, the 
islands again were passed, but the decks of the steamer 
were then deserted. 

The evenings were always welcomed by Mrs. Smith, for 
it was then that the passengers, scattered during the day, 
were gathered together in the cabin ; and it was then that 
Mrs. Smith’s social versatility afforded unlimited diversion 
to her compagnons de voyage. Miss Kennard was usually 
ordered to the piano as the opening exercise. One even- 
ing as some swinging, undulating waltz movement swept 
out from beneath Katharine’s elastic fingers, Mrs. Smith 
exclaimed, — 

“ Oh ! that ’s just too ravishing ! Judge Berry, if you 
could only conceive how I yearn to waltz, as a gentleman 
and a Christian you would try. Jim danced superbly; 
he just waltzed right into my heart.” 

‘‘ In my youth the selection of a conjugal companion 
was considered a subject worthy of serious contemplation,” 
the judge replied sententiously. 

After tantalizing Mrs. Smith with waltzes, Katharine 
would play for Captain Nicholson ; and he being an old- 
countryman, it was the Blue-Bells of Scotland,” “ Bonnie 
Dundee,” and “Annie Laurie ” that she gave him, invariably 
closing this section of her programme with “ Mrs. Mc- 
Donald’s Scotch Reel,” — the quaintest and Scotchiest of 
them all. The Captain begged for the same tunes every 
evening. Doctor,” he said, “ your daughter makes that 
piano almost sing; she takes me back to my boyhood, 
and fairly brings my mother’s face before me.” 


88 


JUS BROKEN SWORD, 


It was the judge who delighted in war-tunes. The 
lion and the lamb reposed together as the “ Bonnie Blue 
Flag” and the Star-Spangled Banner,” Dixie Land” 
and “ Hail, Columbia ! ” mingled harmoniously and with 
equal acceptance. 

It happened one evening that Katharine usurped the 
position of mistress of ceremonies. After dashing off a 
spray of waltz-movement for Mrs. Smith, a fragment of 
English song for the captain, and a martial strain for the 
judge by way of preliminary, she paused, wheeled around 
on her piano-stool, and announced, — 

“ Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor to present to 
you a new star ; ” and thereupon Teddy Nicholson, the 
captain’s boy of twelve, joined Miss Kennard and made his 
blushing bow. 

By some knack of touch, Katharine produced a low, 
thrumming, banjo-like accompaniment from the piano, 
above which rose, sweet and clear, a flute-like note, carry- 
ing one negro melody after another, — Old Black Joe,” 
‘‘ Uncle Ned,” “ Massa’s in the Cold, Cold Ground,” 
and others of their kindred : those sorrowful melodies of 
the South, plaintive as the call of the mourning dove. 
It was only a boy’s whistle, but it touched a chord in every 
breast. 

The captain undisguisedly wiped his eyes when his boy 
finished. “Ah, Teddy,” he said, “it takes Miss Kennard 
to show off your accomplishments. I ’m afraid you ’ll be 
going off to join the minstrels next.” 

“ Madam Smith comes next on the programme ; the per- 
formance in her case is left to discretion.” 

“Yes, it’s my turn now,” assented the lady mentioned. 
“Captain, just give me an arm to the head of this vast 
apartment, and I ’ll speak a piece, so to say, for you.” 

After posing a moment or two, and looking altogether too 


DIVERSIONS. 89 

distractingly flirtatious for a matron of Boston extraction, 
she began : — 

“ It was a jolly oysterman.” 

and when she concluded with, — 

“ And now they keep an oyster-shop 
For mermaids down below,” 

her manner was deliciously captivating. Even the stem 
judicial features were relaxed into a smile, and the stoop- 
shouldered Mr. Wackershouser nearly bent himself double 
with suppressed glee. 

“ Is n’t she a brick, though? ” Teddy whispered to Miss 
Kennard. 

After that, recitations from ‘‘the little actress,” as the 
judge called her, were in great demand. 

It was on the return trip that the “Montgomery” passed 
the Pictured Rocks by daylight, or rather at approach of 
evening ; and the passengers were all assembled on deck. 
The vessel passed near the shore, and the level rays of 
the sinking sun struck the rocks, adding new splendor to 
their rich coloring, and exhibiting to perfection their strik- 
ing and wonderful outlines. As they came distinctly into 
view a hush fell over the group of persons, each one ab- 
sorbed in contemplating this impressive vision. 

They seemed to have drifted into some fabulous wonder- 
land. Katharine was filled with subdued excitement, al- 
most holding her breath lest the charm should be broken. 
Mrs. Smith’s big eyes were expanded with amazement. 
Every vestige of a smile had left Mr. Wackershouser, and a 
fine repose had settled upon his odd face. 

But the increasing expression of solemn astonishment 
deepening in Judge Berry’s face was too great a temptation 
to be resisted by Mrs. Smith. 

“ Oh ! Judge,” she exclaimed, “ what magnificent sculp- 


90 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


ture, what superb coloring ! Was it done at the expense of 
Government?” 

“ By the Divine Government, ma’am,” the judge replied 
with a gentle earnestness which had its effect. 

‘‘The judge got ahead of her this time,” commented 
Teddy. 

“How I wish baby could remember this wonderful 
beauty ! But it would not be possible, would it. Doctor? ” 
Mrs. Benedict inquired, with apparently the faint hope that 
the Doctor would admit the possibility. 

“ I am afraid not, at ten months,” the Doctor answered. 

“ If she does, she will come to consider it a recollection 
of heaven and an intimation of immortality,” ventured Mrs. 
Smith. 

“ Lovely being, then she has a soul, after all ! ” was the 
joyful inference of the willowy Wackershouser. 

“Is it possible that she believes in anything but this 
world?” inwardly queried the judge, not recognizing the 
allusion. But the captain only thought, “What queer 
notions women have ! ” 


CHAPTER XV. 


ANOTHER WALTZ. 



HE next morning the passengers of the Mont- 
gomery ” were drowsily conscious of the com- 
motion attendant upon a stopping of the boat, 
and vaguely remembered yesterday’s report 
that they would reach some unheard-of little place at five 
o’clock in the morning. Miss Kennard was aroused suffi- 
ciently to endeavor to recall the name of the place, and 
raised her window for a glimpse of the unknown shore ; 
but from the wintry breeze that swept in through the open- 
ing she concluded that they had drifted into the Arctic 
regions, and she was glad to return to her adventures in 
Dreamland. 

An hour later, hearing her father moving in the adjoining 
stateroom, the young lady’s courage revived, and she soon 
appeared on deck, warmly wrapped in her plaid, but too 
late to go on shore, for the boat was already in motion. 

Never mind, papa, we will go up on the hurricane-deck 
and take a constitutional,” she said, slipping her hand within 
her father’s arm. However, when the desired elevation was 
reached they stood for some time silently watching the 
receding shore. 


92 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


They were observed with evident interest by a new pas- 
senger whom they had not noticed. 

Katharine’s lithe young figure was outlined against the 
sky, the wind played with her scarf of light blue veiling, set 
in trembling motion the fringes of her shawl, and gave a 
backward sweep to the folds of her dress. The stranger 
noted the delicate contour, the heavy twist of shining hair, 
and the Andalusian foot. A moment after, and father and 
daughter began their promenade. 

‘‘ I ’ll wait and see if she remembers me,” decided the 
young man. 

But Katharine happened to be absorbed just then in talk- 
ing ; the breeze bonveyed her words : — 

Now, if I had made the allusion that she did, it would 
have sounded horribly pedantic ; but to hear that little 
heathen refer to Wordsworth in that familiar fashion was 
bewitching. I wondered if she appreciated the delicious 
incongruity. I wanted to give her a kiss.” 

Happy Hittle heathen,’ who can she be?” cogitated 
the over-hearer as he moved nearer the range of their return 
walk. There was no mistaking the instant recognition and 
glad surprise that lighted Katharine’s face as her eyes fell 
upon the new-comer. 

Dr. Kennard witnessed with surprise the cordial greeting 
between his daughter and the good-looking young stranger. 
The Doctor pronounced him good-looking because he looked 
good. Such an honest, common-sense, genial face, with 
that firm, square chin, and those ingenuous gray eyes, was a 
passport among men. Scarcely was Major Allston presented 
to Dr. Kennard before a contagious, ringing peal of 
laughter heralded the approach of Mrs. Smith, and her 
brilliant face appeared, encircled by the fleecy folds of her 
fascinator,” as she mounted the last rung of the ladder of 
ascent. Merely bowing in acknowledgment of Allston’s 


ANOTHER WALTZ. 


93 


introduction, she joined the Doctor, saying in a low but 
distinctly audible tone : “ The baby is not well ; I have a 
gloomy conviction that it is a premature development of 
her intimations of immortality.” 

‘‘ Butterflies should not indulge in sacrilegious nonsense,” 
said Katharine. The baby is n’t really ill, is she ? ” 

‘‘I don’t know; maybe she is,” returned Mrs. Smith 
with a comic look of blank innocence that discounted her 
previous remark. “ She was weeping when I left her ; but 
perhaps she only missed her most devoted.” 

If you will undertake the duties of chaperone up here, 
I will try to comfort Miss Baby,” said the Doctor ; but the 
summons to breakfast carried them all below. 

Mrs. Smith was grievously tempted to lavish her bland- 
ishments on the new-comer ; but this first day she refrained, 
from a generous regard of Katharine’s prior claim. She 
found compensating amusement, however, in opening the 
whole battery of her coquetries upon Judge Berry, and 
bewildered him to such an extent that he almost lost his 
moral bearings. Her triumph was complete when she had 
cajoled the judge into learning to play euchre. 

For some occult reason it came to pass that Allston, now 
Colonel instead of Major, rather monopolized the society of 
the only young lady on board. Through mutual remem- 
brance, time, and distance, their one meeting had become 
magnified into an old friendship, and seemed to have de- 
veloped unlimited associations. It could be no stranger 
with whom Katharine was so perfectly at home on the very 
day of their chance encounter. 

The two were talking together as the steamer swept 
across White Fish Bay and was moored beside the long 
narrow Point where fishermen cast their nets with such suc- 
cess ; and as a matter of course the Colonel escorted the 
young lady on shore, past the long row of unkempt and 


94 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


sun-browned fishermen who lined the dock, through the 
rough sheds where the fish were packed, and between the 
freshly tarred nets spread on the grass to dry. 

As they reached the pebbly beach where the wet stones 
were glistening in the sun, three great dogs, beautiful, long- 
haired, tan-colored monsters, sprang forward with enthusi- 
astic greeting ; they threw their front paws and heads on 
the shoulders of the strangers, caressing them ardently, and 
looking up into their faces with joyful confidence. 

Katharine was nearly overwhelmed by this demonstrative 
affection, until her escort caused a diversion by flinging a 
broken oar into the water, which sent the dogs bounding 
into the waves in wild excitement. 

Watch their faces,” said the Colonel ; “ see the pride 
and elation of the one that secures the prize, and the dis- 
appointment and chagrin of the others. It is too patheti- 
cally human. Poor fellows ! they remind me of my college 
days. Don’t you always wish that dogs could speak. Miss 
Kennard ? Don’t you wonder what is the real dividing-line 
between them and us? ” 

“ They certainly share our best qualities, — courage, faith- 
fulness, unselfishness. If self-sacrifice is divine in us, what 
is it in you, you splendid fellow?” Katharine answered, 
turning to the dog who had just dropped a watery trophy 
at her feet. 

A broad line of snowy spray was dashed along the hard 
beach as the rushing waves chased each other on shore. 
Nature seemed to have taken up the mad frolic of the 
dogs, which grew wilder as new passengers joined the group 
and more bits of plank were sent skimming on the water 
than could be captured by the eager pursuers. 

In the shifting combinations of persons that followed. 
Colonel Allston took good care to keep near Miss Kennard ; 
he had no mind to surrender his privilege of helping her 


ANOTHER WALTZ. 95 

over the ups and downs on the return to the steamer, and 
momentarily clasping her hand by the way. 

I^ter in the day, in the early edge of the evening, he 
thought it great good-luck when he happened to find Miss 
Kennard by herself aloft in a little life- boat, and was invited 
to share her favorite retreat. 

The sun was nearing the horizon ; not the lightest breeze 
was stirring ; and the over-arching heavens, with their blen- 
ded sea-shell tints of gold and rose, were reflected on the 
surface of the water ; while the new moon looked down 
upon its own image, — a silvery scimitar quivering on the 
bosom of the lake. Unnoted silence fell between the two ; 
they were not even consciously thinking of each other in 
their perfect enjoyment of the exquisite beauty and calm 
of the hour. 

It was Katharine who broke the silence, as she turned to 
her companion, saying : “ There ’s nothing even akin to the 
fascination of water except music, is there? And even 
music misses something of the effect of — how shall I 
express it? — illimitable elevation; aspiration? You see 
I have n’t expressed it ; the moment one attempts to 
embody a spiritual impression in words, one simply mate- 
rializes it.” 

’T is only the soul can interpret 
The message that comes from the sea ; 

No words have the power to imprison 
That spirit so boundless and free.” 

The Colonel’s voice was musical and sympathetic as he 
echoed Katharine’s thought in verse, and the young girl 
was thrilled with pleasure by his response. 

Oh ! who said that, and what is the rest ? ” she asked. 

“ ' Anon.’ said it ; and I think I can remember the other 
verses for you.” 

As Katharine listened, the quiet bay seemed to expand 


96 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


into the vast ocean ; when the poem was finished, only the 
light in the listener’s eyes paid tribute to its beauty. 

“Do you know,” she said, “it seems so odd to hear a 
soldier fresh from war repeating poetry of that character? ” 

“ Fighting certainly is not a sentimental business, even 
when a sentiment causes a man to enlist in the army ; but 
you must remember that fighting forms but a small part of 
a soldier’s occupation. To a degree, war seems always to 
foster romance. I fancy that a soldier passes more hours 
in sentimental reverie than would be possible to any man 
carrying on an active business. Is it not Bayard Taylor 
who tells us how, on the eve of battle, — 

“ They sang of love, and not of fame ; 

Each heart recalled a different name, 

But all sang ‘ Annie Laurie ’ ? ” 

Katharine’s memory supplemented the unspoken close, — 

“ The bravest are the tenderest. 

The loving are the daring.” 

“ What a foaming crest of poetry followed in the wake 
of the war,” continued Allston. 

“ Too much like the flowers that grow on graves,” inter- 
posed Katharine. 

“ But more enduring,” the young soldier added ; “ many 
of these poems will have passed into the national inheri- 
tance of literature, to the generation who will know the 
war only as history. Those inspired words of Lowell’s 
Commemoration Ode must ring clear through centuries. 
But you do not know how much cause I have to feel that ; 
for you do not know that I started West from Boston, and 
that it was my great good fortune to be present, and to 
hear that Ode from the poet’s own lips. I wish that I could 
give you some idea of the profound and thrilling impression 
that it produced. I would not have missed it for worlds. 


ANOTHER WALTZ. 


97 


because, in some way, it seemed to free the spiritual from 
the material side of the war, to illumine the great ideas, 
and to drop into insignificance all sacrifices. You can fancy 
a soldier dying on the battle-field, and through death lifted 
beyond all the horrors of the war into the full realization of 
the eternal value of the principles for which he had given 
a few years of life. Lowell seemed like a divine prophet 
commissioned to give the same assurance to those soldiers 
who happened to be left on the darker side. Those who 
had fought and died, and those who had fought and lived, 
seemed welded into undying unity as the poet exalted the 
high cause and the deathless results for which all alike — ” 

The young officer abruptly paused, blushing like a school- 
girl with the sudden consciousness that in his eulogy of the 
poet he was sounding his own praises. But the enthusiasm 
which had unthinkingly carried him on — as really regard- 
less of himself as if he had not been a soldier — this 
enthusiasm was clearly reflected in the shining eyes and 
the mobile face of his companion. 

A diversion was at hand in the form of Teddy Nicholson. 

“ Miss Kennard, Mrs. Smith sends her compliments, and 
wishes me to say that the performers in the cabin are wait- 
ing for the orchestra ; and Mrs. Smith sends her compli- 
ments to Colonel Allston, and requests that he will honor 
her with his first waltz.” 

Teddy concluded this announcement with a ceremonious 
bow. 

‘‘ Please present our compliments to Mrs. Smith, Teddy, 
and tell her that the orchestra will be down directly ; that 
Colonel Allston is engaged to Miss Kennard for the first 
waltz, but will be highly honored to claim her hand for the 
second.” Then, turning to Katharine, the Colonel asked : 
“ By the way. Miss Kennard, have n’t the stars come out 
ahead of time this evening?” 

7 


98 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


** I should think so, judging from the light still in the 
west. And when did I promise you a waltz? ” 

I took the liberty of claiming it, minus the formality of 
a promise.” 

“ There ’s no one to play for us.” 

Can’t some one whistle a waltz ? Teddy can and 
shall.” 

And Teddy did; and aptly selecting one suitable to a 
military dancer, began the air to — 

“ I now freely offer 
My heart and my hand 
To thee, my dearest country, 

To thee, my native land.” 

Mrs. Smith mischievously hummed a sotto-voce varia- 
tion : — 

“ I now freely offer 
My heart and my hand 

To thee, enchanting maiden, 

The fairest in the land.” 

But only Teddy caught the words, which caused him to 
laugh, and made it difficult for him to work his whistle. 

They were slowly revolving through the cabin when the 
Colonel said in an undertone : “ I can scarcely realize that 
this waltz is a present reality, and not merely a memory.” 

“ And I never knew until this morning whether you were 
living or dead,” his partner somewhat irrelevantly re- 
sponded, as if his life had become a matter of some 
moment to her. 

And then Mrs. Smith waltzed to her heart’s content. 

You are a capital waltzer. Colonel, but not quite equal 
to Jim, after all,” she exclaimed as they paused. “ I don’t 
believe you have the soul of a waltzer, and Jim has ; still, 
for an average man you do very well.” She chatted on 
amiably while both were recovering breath ; then suddenly 


ANOTHER WALTZ. 


99 


assumed an air and tone of authority. “ And now you 
must do something to entertain the brethren and sisters 
here assembled. I am the mistress of ceremonies, and my 
mandates are implicitly obeyed. We have been subsisting 
on piano-playing, whistling, and dramatic recitation. We 
demand a change. You must give us a song, — a war-song, 
full of fire and smoke and powder.” 

The gallant Colonel entered into the spirit of the little 
commander. 

“ Of course there does n’t happen to be a collection of 
Schumann’s songs on board ? ” he said to Katharine. 

“ Oh ! yes, there is,” she answered ; “ I brought my vol- 
ume of Scotch songs, thinking they might come in well on 
our trip. My Schumann happens to be in a similar binding, 
and by mistake I took both.” 

** What luck ! Then you will play the ‘ Two Grenadiers ’ 
for me ? ” 

The walls of the little cabin echoed to the ringing, so- 
norous baritone. The Colonel sang with a military fire 
and ardor that covered him with glory. 

What an inspiriting accompaniment you play. Miss 
Kennard ! That magnetic touch of yours just arouses all 
the music there is in a man.” 

was so interested in listening, I wonder I did not 
forget to play. You touched one of my enthusiasms when 
you proposed a Schumann song.” 

Mrs. Smith was radiant with the success of her hap- 
hazard stroke. 

“ Oh, Colonel Allston, this does break my heart ! Such 
an acquisition to our company just when I am on the 
dizzy verge of departure ! ” she said, with tragic despair. 

I know ’t is true my absence will not create quite such 
an aching void, since you are come to fill the vacancy ; 
but it is meagre comfort realizing that one will not be 


lOO 


I/IS BROKEN SWORD. 


missed. To-morrow evening my tears of desolation will 
mingle with the watery waste of Lake Huron. I suppose 
there is no use in denying that I am frivolous to the core ; 
but even frivolity can experience the pangs of separation.” 

However, Mrs. Smith made the most of her last evening 
on board the “ Montgomery,” and kept up her social gale 
until near midnight. Before the Eastern and Western 
bound passengers finally separated, Mrs. Smith made 
ardent protestations of friendship for Miss Kennard, and 
had endeavored to extract the promise of a visit. 

“Not out in Iowa, you know, — that would simply be the 
immolation of a saint. You must come to me in Boston, 
and we will return West together, before the holidays. I ’d 
like to exhibit you to my friends as a native flower of the 
West. They have no idea that the Badger State can pro- 
duce such a specimen of elegant simplicity. Now I like 
to be elaborate in dress ; it ’s one of my fixed foibles : but 
I will confess that I just feel like a dahlia beside a lily 
when I am with you.” 

“ You are far more like a royal George IV. rose than I 
am like a lily.” 

“Perhaps I meant tiger-lily,” Mrs. Smith said vaguely. 
It was one of her whims to feign ignorance of what she had 
meant whenever one of her assertions was challenged. 

“ Tiger-lily,” she continued, — “ no, I don’t think I 
meant that either. You are not tall and stately, in the 
orthodox lily sense ; but for all that you have in you some- 
thing of the essential essence of the lovely white lilies.” 

Colonel Allston, standing by, could have defined that 
“ essence ” in one word. 

“You shall say what flower Miss Kennard is like. Colonel,’^ 
commanded the ruler of the cabin. 

“ The harebell,” responded Allston, without an instant’s 
hesitation. 


ANOTHER WALTZ. 


lOI 


“ Why, of course, just the harebell, — delicacy, fearless- 
ness, aspiration ; swayed by the lightest breeze, and yet 
clinging securely in most dangerous and inaccessible 
heights, against horrible bare, rugged cliffs.” 

“ What do you know of my courage, moral or physical. 
Madam Smith? And as for holding my own through dan- 
ger and desolation on bare and rugged heights, no mortal 
girl was ever more sheltered and protected than I.” 

I don’t care a bit about that ; you ’re only a girl yet. 
I know people ; I was n’t born in Boston for nothing, I can 
assure you. You have n’t been married yet ; perhaps mat- 
rimony will prove your bleak and dizzy precipice. And 
mark my words,” — in a tragically prophetic tone, — ‘‘where 
your affections once take root, there they will hold, though 
lightnings scathe, and hurricanes rage ! ” 

“ It is too late in the day for Folly to attempt to palm 
herself off as a Sibyl ; we know her too well. Already her 
idle words are scattered to the winds,” replied Katharine. 

Colonel Allston had detected the vein of genuine Yankee 
shrewdness beneath the mercurial surface which was apt to 
dazzle the eyes of those who regarded Mrs. Smith. He 
wondered whether her gauge of Miss Kennard’s character- 
istics was at all accurate ; and over his after-dinner cigar 
he very naturally pursued speculations of his own in the 
direction indicated by Mrs. Smith. 

When night closed in, the cabin circle very sensibly missed 
the scintillations of the bewitching little will-o’-the-wisp, 
w'hose audacity had never overflowed the channels of per- 
fect good-nature. 

“ As for her staying in Boston until cold weather, in her 
heart she is already secretly pining for ‘ Jim,’ as she be- 
trayed to me a dozen times,” said Katharine. 

“If only she could have the comfort of knowing how 
sadly we miss her,” murmured the depressed Wacker- 


102 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


shouser, emboldened to offer a remark by way of tribute to 
the departed luminary before abandoning himself to pen- 
sive melancholy. 

It certainly would have elated Mrs. Smith could she 
have seen with what thinly veiled eagerness Judge Berry 
proposed a game of euchre. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


CUPID IN A CEMETERY. 



RING the night the “ Montgomery ” again glided 
into the Straits of Mackinac and cast anchor 
on the island for over Sunday. Very unlike a 
fashionable hotel was the old Mission House, 
to which the voyagers directed their steps when they left 
the steamer after a late breakfast. 

The morning air was delicious, and as the piazza was 
more inviting than the interior of the house, the strangers 
took possession by common consent. A row of windows 
opened from the piazza into the low parlor, from whence 
issued children’s voices in a chorus of Sunday-school hymns ; 
and glancing within, what a charming picture was revealed ! 
In the centre of the group of children sat a lady who was 
still on what we call the sunny side of life ; but then, 
her side of life would always be the sunny side, for she 
knew where to find light from the west as surely as from 
the east. 

Of the blond type, she yet gave an impression of a 
Southern luxuriance of nature and temperament. Every- 
thing about her was on a generous scale. There was power 
and sweetness and humor in her strong, womanly face, 
characterized by lines at once firm and flexible ; but the 


104 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


all-pervading expression was — benevolence is too mild a 
term, excluding a certain imperial quality which is devel- 
oped only by the ability as well as the desire to give gener- 
ously; the stamp of what one has done, as well as the 
assurance of what one would willingly do. To meet Mrs. 
Whitney once was to think of her ever afterwards as the 
living embodiment of Beneficence. But all this was not 
discovered by the observers, for it happened that the lady’s 
back was towards them, and only the ripples of her hair, as 
silky and sunny as Katharine’s own, suggested an attractive 
face. She had the children well in hand, played their ac- 
companiment cheerily on the jingling old piano, and carried 
half a dozen hymns to a triumphant close ; then she seated 
one of the smallest children on her ample lap, and listened 
to a shyly lisped Bible verse ; then scattered her little flock 
with the announcement that they must run off and get ready 
for Sunday-school. At this juncture the lady arose and 
faced her spectators. As she saw at a glance that they 
must have witnessed her proceedings, she advanced directly 
towards them, saying : You see I am one of the mothers 
in Israel. The children love to sing, and I love to hear 
them ; ” and she went on talking to the strangers as if she 
had known them all her life. 

Wait for an introduction in a place like that? Not Mrs. 
Whitney. She could assume the forms and ceremonies of 
the straitest sect of social Pharisees ; but she was altogether 
too sure of her position to fear any danger in possibly speak- 
ing to the wrong person, and the instinct of hospitality was 
so strong within her that whether in her own home, on board 
a steamer, or at a country hotel, she had always a welcome 
for the new-comer. 

An old habitue of Mackinac, she was familiar with its 
varied attractions ; and finding that the strangers were only 
to be there for the day, she made out an order of pro- 


CUPID IN A CEMETERY. 


105 


ceedings for Colonel Allston which would insure their 
acquaintance with the main points of interest on the island. 

“ But to begin with,” she concluded, you must go to 
church this morning, — you young people, at least, — up 
at the fort, where services are held. The seats are only 
benches, and like as not you will have a prosy sermon, and 
all you will gain from it will be a lesson in patience. But 
it will do you good, nevertheless ; and perhaps this young 
lady, who looks very accomplished, can help the singing 
along.” 

And so it happened that the Doctor and Mr. Wacker- 
shouser, Katharine and the Colonel, climbed to the top of 
the steep hill, where, perched upon the height, was the 
little fort with its chapel. The Doctor grew rather drowsy, 
and nodded once or twice during the sermon ; Mr. Wacker- 
shouser bent his head forward and lifted up his ear to catch 
the words of wisdom, with a touch of the same avidity 
which had characterized him as a listener to utterances of 
quite another sort. 

The other two looked over the same book, and contri- 
buted a light soprano and a full bass to the hymns ; and 
they did not grow drowsy, and they did not lend their 
ears ” to the sermon ; neither did the time seem long. 

Colonel Allston was conscious of a faint breath of English 
violet whenever Miss Kennard moved, and he speculated 
as to the number of the perfectly fitting glove on the slen- 
der hand that held one side of the hymn-book, and won- 
dered how the young ladies of the period could produce 
fresh gloves and perfumed laces at a moment’s notice, 
wherever they might be stranded. 

After service the Colonel showed a soldier’s interest in the 
fort and all its belongings, and Katharine took a woman’s 
interest in the guard-house that had held rebel prisoners 
not long before. The Doctor lingered in the sick ward of 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


106 

the hospital, where there chanced to be an unusual case. 
Mr. Wackershouser, with his hands behind him, listened 
and gazed around ; heard every word that was spoken ; 
dropped into memory a picture of the little fort, enclosed 
in its irregular white wall, the fringe of houses along the 
shore below, the unruffled sheet of water, bluer than the 
sky” beyond, and across in the distance the Michigan 
shore : but never a word he said. 

After dinner came the ramble over to the Arched Rock. 
The atmosphere was laden with the fragrance of resinous 
trees ; the ground strewn with shining pine-needles ; and 
ferns by the thousands bordered the pathways and graced 
the secluded glens. The air was like nectar ; mere exist- 
ence was delight. The walk was not long, and their desti- 
nation burst on them as a surprise. One moment shut in 
on every side by trees, the next a gleam of water through 
the meshes of green, and then, directly before them, the 
outlining rock of the island was arched into the setting of 
a great sparkling, limpid sapphire as one looked through 
the oval opening to the lake beyond. 

“ How perfectly entrancing ! ” exclaimed Katharine to 
her companion. She neared the edge of the precipice and 
recklessly advanced towards the crown of the arch, with a 
desire to stand upon the very summit of the curving bridge ; 
she felt as sure of her poise as a bird. The Colonel saw 
her danger, but did not dare to startle her. 

“ Wait for me. Miss Harebell ; that ’s not the rock for 
you to climb. Keep your courage until it is needed,” he 
said, in a tone that arrested her until she was within his 
reach. Now take my hand, please, and return with me.” 
She gave her hand, and he held it firmly until they were on 
secure ground. 

“ You did not really think that was unsafe ? ” she asked. 

“ A single misstep, and all would have been over for you 


CUPID IN A CEMETERY. 


107 


in this world, I imagine.” And Katharine suddenly rea- 
lized that life seemed very precious. 

They were joined by the loitering members of their party 
and others from the hotel ; but it was not long before the 
two again wandered off together in search of some charmed 
spring, to which all young fortune-seekers who arrive at 
Mackinac are directed. The careless young ramblers soon 
lost their way, and their vagrant footsteps led them at last 
into an old burying-ground, where the pioneers of the island 
life had been laid to rest. The graves were not many, and 
the most of them were neglected by all but Nature, who 
had taken her forgotten children back into her bosom, and 
kept the mounds covered with fresh verdure through all 
the summers. 

Katharine was quite ready for a rest ; and dropping upon 
the grass, she leaned back against an old tombstone that 
was stained by time and settled aslant into the earth. 
Flecks of sunshine, filtering through an overhanging birch- 
tree, sprinkled with drops of light her suit of brown and 
gilded the quivering plume that wreathed her hat. A slight 
weariness had subdued her animation, but she looked se- 
renely happy, and face and attitude expressed complete 
repose. 

The eyes of the vigorous young soldier beamed with 
pleasure as he looked upon her, and he honestly believed 
that there was not a lovelier girl in all the universe. Robert 
scarcely knew how it was that he fell to talking of himself ; 
he was certainly not conscious of his growing desire that 
Katharine should be familiar with all of his life : but as his 
friendship for her seemed in some way to date back of mem- 
ory, it was surely but natural that she should know some- 
thing of his history. Her quick, responsive interest and 
sympathy were more welcome to him than he realized. 

“When I entered Columbia College,” he was saying, 


io8 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


** of course I had no thought of becoming a soldier ; I was 
to be an architect. It was my father’s wish that I should 
receive a liberal education, and he had been a Columbia 
man himself. I was graduated in 1859, studied in New 
York until the following May, then went abroad for another 
year for the purpose of continuing my studies and seeing 
the best architecture of Europe. It was, as you can fancy, 
a most delightful experience ; and every hour that I spent 
there was of value to me. Early in the spring of ’61 I was 
telegraphed that my father was dangerously ill. I cannot 
tell you how thankful I have been that I was not too late. 
I had no recollection of the mother who died so long be- 
fore, and my father and I were strongly attached. I felt 
very much alone in the world after his death. The war had 
just begun, and it was a relief to me to enter the army. I 
remember thinking that I was one who certainly ought to 
enlist, because no one would be the less happy if I were 
killed. My father, like myself, was an only child, and I 
have seen very little of my mother’s relatives, so that I 
have no family ties. I ’ve never been much with ladies, 
and you can’t imagine what a pleasure it is to me to have 
met you again. I used to think of you, and to hope that 
some day we should meet again. I did not know where 
you lived, except that it was in some Western city, and I 
remembered that you spoke of living beside a lake ; but I 
was at a loss between Cleveland and Milwaukee. Still, it 
is a little world that we live in, and people who want to 
meet again are likely to do so. I kept the rose that you 
gave me ‘ for good-luck and a safe return,’ and you see I 
am safely returned, and have had the good-luck to find 
you. I have the rose with me now, and I ’m going to ask 
you to accept a little wild-flower in return.” 

He showed her the faded tea-rose bud in its envelope, 
dated December 29, 1863. 


CUPID IN A CEMETERY. 109 

‘‘ The flower that I have for you is this edelweiss, that I 
gathered myself from its nook in the Alps. Yes, it ’s the 
genuine thing, and it cost me a breathless climb. I have 
kept it waiting for the right one. I felt sure that one day 
I should find a friend to whom I might offer it with its 
sacred German sentiment. I have found the friend. Miss 
Kennard. May I write August 10, 1865, on the wrapper 
that encloses the flower? and will you keep it as a sou- 
venir of this day that we have passed together? I really 
think it has been the pleasantest day of my life, and it 
makes me want to give you my edelweiss.” 

This frank avowal of a delicate and generous regard, 
the offer of this tender, downy exotic, embodying at once 
the poetry of compliment and of friendship, was a direct 
appeal to something in Katharine’s nature hitherto un- 
touched — the key-note that Irvington’s grasping passion 
had inevitably missed. 

As the flower changed hands, neither of the two dreamed 
that this frail, snowy edelweiss, which the lightest breeze 
might have borne into oblivion, was the outward and visi- 
ble sign of the spiritual grace of mutual and abiding trust. 
Neither of them thought of love, nor cared to analyze their 
emotions. Mackinac air, August sunshine, and birch-tree 
shade ; youth, health, a companionship so congenial as to 
seem one of the old-time things, yet so new as to give a 
delicious thrill of interest to every topic, — all contributed 
to their complete enjoyment, and made this hour as perfect 
in actual experience as such hours are likely to be only in 
hope or in remembrance. 

Heaven and earth seemed to be in league around them ; 
but little were they aware of it. They were far enough 
from the self-centred condition of the ardent German lover 
who asserts that all the stars keep watch in heaven while 
he sings to his lady-love. 


I lO 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


And yet when they discovered the simple fact that 
Colonel Allston owned property in Milwaukee, and was 
now on his way to that city, both regarded this fact as a 
sort of special providence, and, like all special providences, 
at once natural and surprising. 

When Colonel Allston boarded the Montgomery,” it was 
Chicago that he had in view as the point likely to afford 
the most desirable opening for an architect. Milwaukee 
was incidental on account of business, as he contemplated 
building on his lot in that city ; but Chicago was looked 
upon as his ultimate destination. 

And here was Miss Kennard earnestly descanting upon 
the superior advantages of her native city. With the eager- 
ness of an interested advocate she was telling Colonel 
Allston that Milwaukee was the most unique and lovely 
place in all the West, a city set on a hill in more senses 
than one, looking down on beautiful Lake Michigan on one 
side, and losing itself in sylvan woods on the other. The 
Colonel should know the enchanting drives about Mil- 
waukee. And now the adventurous look in her eyes told 
plainly enough that her imagination was off on a cruise, 
not to be turned from its course by anything so unimpor- 
tant as facts or probabilities ; and somewhere away in these 
romantic forests was the Soldiers’ Home, all ready for the 
Colonel in case he should not succeed as an architect, or 
when he grew old and helpless ; and then she would per- 
haps drive out to see him, and put on her spectacles and 
read to him out of some book with big print. And the 
two young creatures laughed at the idea, as if old age were 
simply an imaginary absurdity of which they could have 
no actual experience, as if independent luxury were one of 
the conditions of their existence. 

It was true, she went on, that there were vacant lots in 
Milwaukee, and the architecture of the city might be called 


CUPID IN A CEMETERY, 


III 


crude, perhaps, — she was hovering over old Athens in her 
aerial flight just now, — but all the greater opportunity was 
open to the genius of a young architect ; and she, Katha- 
rine Kennard, might yet be proud to claim as her birth- 
place the city distinguished by the magnificent buildings 
erected under the direction of the famous Robert Allston. 

The architect of the future smiled at the wonderful air- 
castles reflected in Katharine’s eyes. Chicago, with her 
miles of elevators and vast expanse of out-lying flats ! Perish 
the thought ! By the time that Katharine and her compan- 
ion came within sight of the Mission House on their return, 
the Colonel was almost convinced that he had never seri- 
ously contemplated making Chicago his home. 

It was not a chorus of children’s voices that greeted their 
return to the hotel, it was the ‘‘ Warblings at Eve,” which 
seemed struggling to free itself from the clumsy — what a 
Chicago teacher designates “ the sticky ” — fingers of 
some musical novice. The evening was cool, and the little 
stove in the parlor gave out an odor of fresh blacking and 
the sound of dry, crackling wood. Baby Benedict on her 
mamma’s lap cooed away in serene enjoyment of the heat. 
Mrs. Whitney chatted with Mrs. Benedict, and stroked the 
glossy braids of a pretty black-eyed girl who sat on a foot- 
stool at her feet, gorgeously arrayed in a dark, wine-colored 
fabric embroidered in gold braid. 

Mrs. Whitney introduced the strangers to the black-eyed 
young girl, who, to tell the truth, was lying in wait for them. 
There was a dearth of young men that season to admire her 
elaborate costumes and her flashing eyes, and she was 
thinking that it was high time for the return of the Colonel 
whom she had seen at dinner. She lost no time in engaging 
him in conversation, while Dr. Kennard and Mr. Bene- 
dict joined the group, and they all repaired to the dining- 
room. Mrs. Whitney and Katharine sat next each other at 


1 12 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


supper, and made such rapid advance in acquaintance that 
Katharine arranged a meeting in Milwaukee when Mrs. 
Whitney should be on her way back to Chicago. 

A whistle from the “ Montgomery ” gave warning of the 
time for departure. In the midst of the hurried adieus 
Mrs. Whitney drew Katharine up affectionately, saying, — 

I want to kiss you good-by, my dear, because you are 
so sweet.” 

And Katharine answered : ’m sure I am not half as 

lovely as you are.” 

Colonel Allston and Dr. Kennard smiled at this swiftly 
developed love-passage ; and then the Mission House and 
its inmates were left behind as the travellers wended their 
way towards the steamer. 

The usual family group in the cabin was disintegrated 
that evening, and Dr. Kennard and his daughter had a quiet 
talk apart from the others. The Doctor had a welcome 
piece of news for his daughter. In the Mackinac post- 
office a letter from Mrs. Kennard had awaited him, bring- 
ing the intelligence that Mr. Irvington had gone to Omaha 
on business, and according to Miss Crissfield might leave 
Milwaukee altogether, as he hated the place and seemed 
desirous to try his fortunes farther West. “ Dora told me,” 
the writer added, that he really seemed so savage that she 
advised him to go to the Rocky Mountains and hunt bears 
for a while, as a safe outlet for his destructive energies. 
Dora is rather too reckless in her use of strong expressions,” 
commented the gentle writer. I never found Mr. Irving- 
ton more agreeable than when he came around to see me 
the evening after you left. He spoke just beautifully of 
Katharine, and seemed right concerned about her health. 
He said nothing about going West.” 

The very mention of Irvington’s name brought a cloud 
over Katharine’s face, recalling the wretched period of her 


CUPID IN A CEMETERY. 


II3 

existence which the past ten days had done much to oblit- 
erate. She had dreaded the return home whenever she 
had thought of Mr. Irvington, and the anticipation of any- 
thing beyond life on the ‘‘ Montgomery ” was resolutely set 
aside. But now she felt that she could trust her future 
fearlessly. 

The following day, like the last day of all pleasure-trips, 
was so laden with remembrance of the days recently passed, 
and with preparations for the return just at hand, that it 
seemed to have no character of its own. Katharine gos- 
sipped with Mrs. Benedict, and played with Baby Lulu; 
while Colonel Allston had a long business talk with Doctor 
Kennard, and the judge and Mr. Wackershouser quite 
seriously discussed Madam Smith. 

Teddy Nicholson watched his chance and took pos- 
session of Miss Kennard for a little while, and promised to 
look her up in Milwaukee the first time the “ Montgomery ” 
gave him opportunity. There was the inevitable distraction 
of packing and gathering together of the scattered odds 
and ends of personal possessions. Madam Smith’s neg- 
lected novels abounded, and were distributed by the 
captain as keepsakes. Mr. Wackershouser’s volume was 
consecrated by a delicate memorial inscription in Katharine’s 
handwriting on the fly-leaf. 

The unnoticed hours slipped into the past, and daylight 
took on the warmer hues of sunset. 

How I shall miss the baby ! ” said Doctor Kennard, 
who was actually rocking the child to sleep. 

“ Will you come up on the hurricane-deck with me and 
look for the stars to come out?” asked Colonel Allston of 
Katharine Kennard; and Katharine went. 


8 


CHAPTER XVII. 


HALCYON DAYS. 

BERT ALLSTON, Architect,” was the letter- 
ing outside of the door of a second-floor front 
room in a new building on one of the main 
business-streets of Milwaukee. Within the 
offlce sat the architect himself one evening during the 
April following his arrival in the city. Interest and pleasure 
in his occupation were plainly visible in his expression as 
he bent over a table on which were scattered plans of 
residences. Unconsciously he was whistling, in a sort of 
whisper, Katy Darling,” — ^ a flat little tune set to inane 
little verses, a popular possession of organ-grinders before the 
era of the war, and a song that asserted itself in spasmodic 
flashes in camp. Since he had a Katy darling of his own, 
Allston had adopted the air with the uncritical pleasure with 
which he received everything remotely suggesting his own 
precious possession. 

On this particular evening he was putting in the finishing 
touches to a plan in which he had embodied his own idea 
of a home ; and the next day he was going to claim an 
immediate reward for the work, for not long before his 
sweetheart had said : When you show me a plan for our 
house, then I ’ll consider the wedding-day.” 



HALCVOAT DAYS. 


II5 

When he replied, Let us set the wedding-day first, and 
then plan the house together,” she had answered that she 
wished this future home to be presented for her considera- 
tion full grown and complete. 

The lot on which they were to build was Katharine’s 
Christmas present from her father ; and as the house was 
to be a gift from her mother, Mrs. Kennard was naturally 
expected to be an authority in its construction. 

However, she confined herself to only the most general 
suggestions and to but a single stipulation, — that not one 
** Milwaukee brick ” should be visible. 

“ There should be plenty of closets, Robert,” she said. 

And broad, airy windows and a wide piazza ; and that ’s 
all I'm going to ask,” added Katharine as she left the 
room in order to keep her resolution. 

“ I ’ll tell you, Robert,” said his prospective mother-in- 
law, “ I’ 11 tell you what I would like, if you will promise to 
remember that I would really rather have you and Kath- 
arine suit yourselves than suit me. Ever since we talked 
of the house I have been haunted by the lovely homes I 
saw in Europe, — I don’t mean the ones just made up of 
a promiscuous collection of angles and gables, and chim- 
neys crawling up over the outside, and upper stories with 
the foundations resting on air, and the ceilings joining the 
floors. Every now and then I saw a house that looked like 
a home, that seemed to have been developed from the inside 
outward, — like the Doctor’s idea of developing character, 
— with corners cut off in order to secure the best light or 
the best view, or a single outside chimney, with a broad 
base planted square on a cold northwest corner, as if defy- 
ing the elements from their point of vantage, and telling at 
a glance of a warm interior.” 

Now these suggestions from Mrs. Kennard Robert instantly 
translated into the most welcome sanction of his own par- 


ii6 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


ticular views in regard to a desirable home. He, too, had 
been haunted by houses not made in America, and the 
heart of architect and lover exulted. After agreeing upon 
stone for the exterior, and hard-wood finished in the natural 
grain for the interior, the consultation was concluded, and 
Robert left free to draw up his plans. 

Allston was a young man of decided and sensible views : 
he set a high value on beauty, but cared nothing for 
display. While gratifying his own taste with a view to 
Katharine’s also, and seeking to give to each room, each 
nook and corner, its own individual attraction and adapta- 
tion to the use for which it was designed, he yet adhered 
to simplicity in plan and detail, that the care of the home 
might not be a burden to the young housekeeper. In 
no instance was practical convenience sacrificed to aesthetic 
effect. 

He knew that Katharine’s views of life were simple, like 
his own, and that both must be the losers were the house 
to be made a prime object of existence. He had found 
his lady-love free from the cares of poverty, and he meant 
to protect her, at least in her own home, from the care of 
riches. Every line in his plans was drawn cofi amore.^ and 
the spaces were filled with glad anticipations of the coming 
years. 

When all seemed complete, with pencil still in hand he 
ran his eye critically over the finished details, and mentally 
summed up again the modifications proposed in case the 
plan did not prove wholly acceptable to Mrs. Kennard and 
Katharine ; and then, with a smile of satisfaction, he laid 
aside the drawing and locked his office for the night. 

It had been a prosperous year for Robert Allston. His 
first venture was the erection upon his own lot of the build- 
ing in which his office w^as now located. The building was 
already returning a good rental, and had proved an excel- 


HALCYON DAYS. 


117 


rent advertisement. He enjoyed his profession heartily; 
he studied and worked with energy, and found the flavor 
of business success very agreeable. Then there were the 
Sundays, and the evenings with Katharine. 

Elsie Vandyne had returned home the spring before, 
seeming many years older than the bride who went away ; 
but she was resting, and growing young again, and her 
second mourning, in soft grays and lavenders, was most be- 
coming. She was a very little girl when her family came to 
America, but the German nature held its own ; and though 
her accent was pure, she retained many German forms of 
speech when she forgot herself, — and she usually did for- 
get herself. She took a decided liking to Robert Allston, 
who had been a soldier, and was such a frank and true- 
hearted man, and always so tender and thoughtful towards 
Katharine. 

There were delightful musical evenings at the Brentanos, 
when Miss Crissfield and Mr. Voss, and Katharine and 
Robert, met there, as they often did. The old Professor 
gloried in the musical development of his favorite pupil, 
and approved her preference for a man who could sing 
Schumann and enjoy smoking. It was not long before 
Katharine’s sympathetic perception had divined a grow- 
ing attraction towards Mrs. Vandyne on the part of Mr. 
Voss ; and her suspicion received confirmation when one 
evening Mr. Voss said to her, — 

Is it not strange, Miss Kennard, that it is in America 
that I have found a woman with just the pure and simple 
nature of Goethe’s Dorothea ? ” 

But however agreeable the musical and social gatherings 
might be, Robert missed in them the charm of the quiet 
evenings spent with Katharine alone. The young lady was 
studying the history of architecture, and under Allston’s 
direction it proved a very fascinating subject, while Kath- 


ii8 


HIS BROKEN SWORD, 


arine’s real interest in his chosen pursuit was a source of 
great pleasure to her lover. 

So steadily and so naturally had their friendship de- 
veloped affection that the growing of their love was like the 
change from dawn into the light of day. Before either of 
them was aware of it, the two lives were blended into one 
indivisible existence. The doubts and fears, the misunder- 
standings and variations which seem to form the very tissue 
of many love affairs, were unknown to them. But even 
the most complete and perfect affection must have its out- 
ward recognition — preceded by its hour of uncertainty — 
before the sacred feeling can be exposed, before it can 
be intrusted to audible expression. There seem to be no 
words fine and delicate enough to convey the precious 
message from heart to heart. And so it happened that the 
gallant Colonel quailed before the soft hazel eyes of the 
girl that he loved. 

The fateful hour had fallen on a Sunday late in the pre- 
vious autumn. The lovers had gone for a walk beside the 
lake, and finding a secluded spot, with a fallen tree for a 
seat, had taken possession. It was a mellow afternoon, 
toned with the mystic haze of Indian summer. The blue 
of the lake was merged into changing tints of amethyst ; its 
quiet expanse was flecked here and there with the sails 
of distant vessels or nearer pleasure-boats, while lines of 
snowy gulls drifted by, away into the fading distance. The 
veiled sunlight glowed, but did not seem to shine. 

For years after, that soft sky, that lake of trembling ame- 
thyst, the white sails and the circling gulls were mirrored 
in Katharine’s heart. 

The young girl felt a premonition of the coming words, 
but rested secure in her woman’s kingdom. ‘‘ Not hers to 
do or dare.” 

“ Katharine, I want to tell you a secret, — it is an open 


HALC YON DA YS. 1 1 9 

secret, I know; but I must tell it to you all the same. 
Please give me your hand for courage.” 

Katharine gave the hand, but her eyes rested on a far- 
away sail. 

“ I think I want the other hand too, Katharine.” 

She again answered the demand, but she could not help 
it that the two little hands trembled as the larger ones 
closed around them. 

“ And now I want your heart, Katie darling, — I want 
you altogether; because, you know, dear — ” and here 
Katharine’s eyes met his own ; and how the rest was 
said, neither of them ever knew. 

Once their love was spoken, what a wonderful and 
beautiful thing it suddenly seemed, — arching from earth to 
heaven. This great expanse of light and joy could not be 
held in life and time, but must reach over into eternity. 

That same evening, before church, Katharine contrived 
to have a brief interview with her father. The Doctor was 
in his study when his daughter came in and opened her 
proceedings with a fond caress. Her face was radiant with 
the inner joy that betrayed itself through shining eyes and 
dimpling smiles. 

** What do people do, papa, when they are so happy that 
they don’t know how to live ? ” 

The Doctor drew her down beside him on the arm of his 
chair, knowing well that her present happiness meant com- 
ing separation from him. 

Oh ! they manage to put up with life, somehow ; they 
don’t seem to want to die,” he answered. 

“ I have something to tell you,” Katharine whispered, not 
quite certain that she had courage to speak in her usual 
tone. 

I know it already ; you don’t need to tell me.” 

“ But you can’t know it, for it has only just happened.” 


120 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


“ I Ve seen it coming for weeks back ; I know there is 
only one thing that could put you into this state of blissful 
ecstasy. And, moreover, some one had a talk with me last 
evening, — some one who had the good old-fashioned notion 
that it was better to consult the father before offering him- 
self to the daughter. I will admit to you, my dear, that his 
course gratified me exceedingly. It was not only a mark of 
respect to me, but it showed his appreciation of your value.” 

“ And how like Robert it was ! I hope you made it easy 
for him.” 

“ I don’t think he found it difficult. He knew that he 
was asking a great deal when he asked for you, and he took 
the matter seriously ; but he came directly to the point, as 
he always does.” 

And you can give me to him more easily than to any 
one else in all the world. Don’t you feel that ? ” 

** I think your happiness will be safe with him. Robert 
is a good man, — I am sure of that. He is upright and en- 
ergetic ; he has the finest delicacy, and I don’t believe it is 
in him to be unkind to woman or child. Probably he has 
a temper, — it is almost inseparable from an organization 
like his.” 

Well, I should not want him to be altogether perfect, 
you know ; I should be afraid he would die. Temper is a 
good thing sometimes, I suppose. Papa, were you ever 
angry — downright angry — in your life ? ” 

At the moment the Doctor actually could not remember 
such an event ; but as he would not confess it to the some- 
what high-spirited young questioner, he took refuge in the 
evasion, — 

“ Never with my wife or daughter ; but they are respon- 
sible, not I. Some one is calling you.” 

^‘Well, good-bye, then; I think you are in love with 
Robert too, papa,” she said, bestowing a parting caress. 


HALCYON DAYS. 


121 


The Doctor wished that his wife were as heartily in favor 
of this engagement as he was. Love of the South was in- 
grained in Mrs. Kennard’s nature, and Colonel Allston had 
fought on Maryland soil, — perhaps in direct combat with 
her own relatives ; and that she could never forget. How- 
ever well she liked the man, the soldier touched a most 
sensitive spot. Katharine knew this, and a second time it 
was hard to confide in her mother. 

Mrs. Kennard saw how matters were drifting, but she 
had the justice to admit that her feeling towards the South 
ought not to assert itself then. Not even her husband 
knew what it cost her to accept the engagement kindly 
and cordially; but after it was a settled thing she grew 
more reconciled. Allston himself divined something of her 
feeling, and liked her none the less for her loyalty to early 
ties, affections, and associations. He never referred to the 
war in her presence, and if by chance the subject came up, 
he always spoke generously of the South. 

As months passed, and she saw the happiness of the 
lovers growing more evident, Mrs. Kennard’s secret res- 
ervation was buried deeper and deeper. Robert’s desire 
to win her affection, and his unfailing deference to her 
wishes and opinions, had their effect ; for this gentle lady 
was a born autocrat. 

The conquest was complete on the Sunday when All- 
ston offered his designs for the house for Mrs. Kennard’s 
approval. She looked them all over before expressing her 
opinion. 

It is perfect, absolutely perfect ! Kathie, do look at this, 
and let Robert alone for a minute. I had no idea you 
were so much of an architect, Robert.” 

You don’t expect me to believe that that little chdteau- 
like object is intended to represent our home — a house 
in Milwaukee ! ” exclaimed Katharine in complete amaze- 


122 


HIS BROKEN SWORE. 


merit ; for she had not been enlightened as to the style ot 
architecture contemplated by the two fond conspirators. 

“Don't you like it, Katie? ” anxiously inquired Allston. 

“ Don’t be absurd, dear,” the girl answered ; “ I never 
saw so beautiful a house. I know that I shall change into 
a princess if ever I live in it. Mother, had you any idea 
what this boy was thinking about ? Is n’t it wholly imprac- 
ticable?” she demanded, with a lofty assumption of ma- 
turer wisdom. 

“ It was your mother who suggested the departure from 
regulation Western exteriors.” 

“ It is striking at the very root of our civilization ; under- 
mining our democratic ideas of good square houses or- 
namented with fringes of sawed wood. I ’ve studied 
architecture, and know its dangerous tendencies ; ” and 
the witches of her childhood were dancing in her eyes. 

“ Kathie Kennard, did you ever live in a square house ? ” 
was her mother’s placid inquiry. 

“ I was thinking last evening,” interposed Robert, 
“ that, after all, this new house might be a lineal descend- 
ant of your present home. You remember, Katharine, 
when I first saw it, how delighted I was with this irregular 
stone building, looking so substantial and home-like and 
individual.” 

“ I remember, and. I was so glad that you liked it,” said 
Katharine. Deserting her democratic principles, and joy- 
fully embracing the idea of a modern-antique home of her 
own, she turned to her mother : “ Only fancy, mother, 
what a trousseau will be necessary for the lady who is to 
reign in that petit castle ! And are we to have a moat 
and a grange and a drawbridge, with helmeted guards clad 
in armor of linked steel? ” 

Allston caught her hands. “ You ’ll be flying out of the 
window next on your Pegasus if I don’t hold you fast.” 


HALCYON DAYS. 


123 

‘*You need not be afraid; I should be sure to alight 
near you.” 

“Did I ever tell you how much I admire your nose, 
Katie?” 

“Did I ever tell you that Mrs. Benedict called it 
repoussee ? ” 

But while the lovers talked their nonsense, Mrs. Kennard 
grew serious. Her daughter’s light reference to guards in 
armor had fired a train of thought, and after a moment’s 
consideration she made a venture. Her sweet contralto 
voice betrayed emotion as she asked, — 

“ Robert, do you value the sword that you carried during 
the war very, very much ? ” 

The question surprised the Colonel, and he colored as 
he answered with feeling : “ Yes, I do.” 

“ And you have thought that you would like to hand it 
down to future generations as a treasure to be preserved 
with pride ? ” 

The Colonel’s color deepened. 

“ Certainly, I have thought to do so. How could it be 
otherwise ? Dear Mrs. Kennard, why need we speak of 
this?” 

“ It will always hurt me to think of it, but I have never 
been able to speak of it.” And then she turned her dark 
eyes to him with irresistible eloquence as she made her 
appeal : “ Robert, will you bury your sword, and any 
other weapon you used against my people, under the 
corner-stone of the new home? I would not ask this if 
it did not seem to me wrong that you should preserve 
tokens of that war, evidences that you fought against my 
kindred and Katharine’s, after Katharine has become your 
wife.” 

For a moment the Colonel hesitated. His lips closed 
firmly, and there was a flash of angry light in his eyes. All 


124 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


the soldier in him resented the claim of any one to touch 
those emblems of victorious war. 

But the man was more than the soldier. As he looked 
at Mrs. Kennard his chivalrous nature responded to the ap- 
peal of the beautiful woman, the mother of his promised 
wife, who spoke, he knew,, with reference to a future gen- 
eration in which the blood of the Bentons might mingle 
with that of the Allstons. Hard as it was to comply, 
it was impossible to refuse. In asking that the sword 
should be buried beneath the corner-stone of the house, it 
was offered a most honorable resting-place ; and was not 
devotion to the North really less noble than devotion to 
his whole country, of which the South was also a part? 
He did not glance at Katharine during this rapid reflec- 
tion. He made his decision, and there was no reserva- 
tion in the generous spirit which prompted his reply. 

You are right, Mrs. Kennard ; I am more than willing 
to do as you ask. I am glad that you thought of this. It 
is better for us all to cherish no remembrance of the war, 
now that we have peace. I think this is a most happy 
inspiration.” 

“ Oh, Robert, you are too good ! ” said Katharine, 
whose eyes were bright with the unshed tears that came 
with sudden relief. 

“ Cherish that delusion as long as you can, my dear. 
And now will Miss Kennard redeem her promise, and tell 
me when I may hope to have the honor of calling her my 
wife?” 

“How long before the house can be finished?” 

“ Why wait for that ? How would it suit you to have a 
quiet marriage some evening early in June, if your mother 
will keep us for the summer ? And then we could oversee 
the building of the house together, and have nothing on 
hand but each other and the preparations for housekeep- 


HALCYON DA YS. 1 2 5 

ing. Don’t you think that would be very nice, Katie, 
darling? ” 

And then, lover-fashion, he put his hand under her chin, 
and lifted her face for a moment, while Mamma Kennard 
discreetly looked out of the window. 

“ Children, I think that would be right sensible,” was 
the maternal comment, after a short pause. 

What would be sensible ? Oh, yes ! about the wedding,” 
said Katharine, emerging from blissful oblivion. 

*^The tenth of June is but two months distant, Katie,” 
were Robert’s parting words that night. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


A SIGN OF THE TIMES. 

FEW days later Miss Crissfield, homeward bound, 
was crossing through the park on the diagonal 
short cut from Jefferson to Jackson Street. She 
moved more slowly than usual ; her face was 
clouded, her eyes were cast down, and her firm upper teeth 
pressing upon her drawn-in under-lip, indicated troubled 
preoccupation. 

“ Wait a moment, Dora,” called a familiar voice as 
Katharine hastened to overtake her friend. The joyous 
voice and face broke in upon Dora’s depressing reverie, 
and summoned a responsive smile. 

“ So you have come out in a short dress, Dora,” — be- 
stowing a comprehensive glance of approval as she con- 
tinued : ‘‘it’s a complete success, isn’t it? I thought 
they would look odd at first, but they are so sensible that 
they at once seem the natural thing. Miss Keith is to 
have mine done to-morrow ; and then farewell to the loop- 
ing-up process every time I go out ! Your suit is a lovely 
color, and that knot of dark carnation at your throat is 
very effective against the gray.” 

“ The gray of my complexion, I suppose you mean. I 
feel horribly gray all through,” admitted the young lady, 
with a dry smile. 




A SIGN OF THE TIMES. 1 2 / 

It 's the warm weather ; these first spring days are 
always trying.” 

Miss Crissfield assented : ‘‘ It ’s the weather, no doubt ; 
but you seem to endure the trial remarkably well. You 
step as if your whole system had just been renovated with 
new patent springs. Your voice sounds as if you sub- 
sisted wholly upon larks, and your eyes look as if you 
possessed a private estate in paradise ; you are altogether 
too absurdly happy.” 

I hope that I shall see you equally happy, and with as 
good reason, some day,” was the demure response. 

“ That ’s a very appropriate remark for you to make, my 
dear ; but you know perfectly well that you really don’t 
believe that any one ever was quite so happy before, or 
ever will be again.” 

Dora stopped and faced the girl beside her, taking both 
her hands, and gave her a kiss. As no one happened to 
be in sight, this feminine effusion was unobserved. 

Still holding Katharine’s hands, and looking straight into 
her face, Dora ventured : When are you going to be 
married ? ” 

A vivid blush, an embarrassed protest, prefaced the un- 
folding of plans and prospects which Katharine was really 
eager to discuss with her friend. The two girls walked 
slowly on past Miss Crissfield’s boarding-place, and turned 
to the north. Not a glance did they bestow on the sec- 
tions of blue Lake Michigan that came into view at every 
crossing ; unnoticed was the fragrance of the balm-of- 
Gilead with which the April air was laden ; unheeded rose 
and fell the songs of birds in every tree, so wholly were 
they absorbed in their conversation. 

When the fascinating theme had been fully developed, 
Dora’s thoughts reverted to the cause of her previous 
disquiet. With an involuntary change of tone, she 


128 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


announced ; Joe Irvington is in town ; he came to see 
me last evening: he is greatly altered.” 

Only by change of expression did Katharine give any 
evidence of having heard what Dora said ; and the speaker 
continued : — 

“ He came on to attend to an important lawsuit for an 
old client, and also to assist his mother in preparations for 
removing to Omaha, where they are going to housekeep- 
ing, as he has formed permanent business relations there.” 

Both of the girls felt a decided constraint. Before leav- 
ing Milwaukee, the summer previous, Irvington had told 
Dora of Katharine’s refusal. He had not intended that 
any one should know of it ; but the anger within him had 
found vent, that one evening, in stinging denunciations of 
Katharine. Understanding how the man w'as suffering, 
Dora had listened in silence to words which she knew were 
wholly unjust and cruel. Like a true friend, she was glad 
to give him an opportunity to work off any of his passion 
with her alone. She had blamed herself for introducing 
Irvington to Katharine, although subsequently their ac- 
quaintance would have been inevitable. Katharine felt 
that Dora knew of the refusal, and Dora understood that 
Katharine felt so ; but both had loyally refrained from ever 
mentioning it. 

This unexpected reference to Irvington affected Kathar- 
ine like the vivid revival of a troubled dream. Her old 
feeling of dread of the man had given place to simple aver- 
sion, and it cost her an effort to speak of him. 

I cannot understand your friendship for a man like Mr. 
Irvington,” she remarked, — as if the lawyer could be to 
her only an object of most distant contemplation. 

Dora considered a moment. Knowing what she wanted 
to say, she hesitated as to how she could best say it, but 
at last replied : ‘‘ You must have thought that before ; it 


A SIGN OF THE TIMES. 


129 


puzzles me also. But I think I can partially explain it, and 
I want to talk with you about it. I suppose I ought to 
despise the man ; but inscrutable is the nature of woman : 
we know that ourselves better than any man can tell us. I 
don’t believe that I really do like Joe very much, — that is, 
I should n’t like him if any one else did. His arrogance 
has made him so many enemies, he seems to excite such 
almost universal antagonism, that I pity him profoundly. 
And then there ’s a less generous reason than that : he 
reminds me of some one else that I once cared for.” Her 
voice lowered, and she spoke with visible effort. ‘‘You 
don’t know, Katharine, that I was engaged to be married 
when I was only nineteen.” She paused, and a deep flush 
spread over her face. “ Perhaps I was nearly as happy as 
you are now, dear ; at all events, I simply worshipped the 
man. And when he went East and engaged himself to 
another, — one whose charms were heavily gilded, — and 
afterwards wrote me that he thought we had been hasty and 
made a mistake — Oh, well ! of course I ought to have 
been desperately indignant, and thankful for my escape, 
and all that ; but it did n’t have that effect. I think it was 
because I was so young and so very happy.” The wo- 
man’s lip trembled at the thought of that young, happy girl, 
who ever since then had seemed quite distinct from herself. 
“ It was so terribly sudden, it did nearly kill me. I was ill 
with brain-fever for weeks, and perhaps it left me a little 
odd; for — and this is why I am telling you what I’ve not 
mentioned for seven years — I expect the whole secret of my 
friendship for Mr. Irvington lies in the fact that, from our 
first meeting, he reminded me of the one who caused the 
supreme happiness, as well as the most cruel suffering, of 
my life. In all common-sense, that should have repelled 
me ; but it did not. He seemed in some way associated 
with my other self, — that happy girl who really died when 


130 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


I had the fever, — and I seemed to like him for her sake. I 
think all this has made me perhaps too tolerant towards him, 
too ready to interpret him favorably, and to believe in good 
that others do not see in him. With all our familiar inter- 
course, he has never misinterpreted my friendly feeling to- 
wards him.” 

Afterwards Dora wondered that she could have opened 
her heart in this way to any one. Her short engagement 
had been confided only to her father, who was then living, 
and its rupture had never been discussed. None of her 
acquaintances of recent years suspected the page of ro- 
mance in the history of this cheerful and self-reliant woman. 
Dora turned her frank face towards the younger girl as she 
concluded : — 

“ And now that I have made this little confession, Katha- 
rine, you are n’t going to despise me, are you ? ” and there 
was a shade of wistful uncertainty in her voice. 

Despise you ! What a thought ! It is lovely of you to 
give me the key to this problematic friendship ; and I admit 
that it is a redeeming point in Mr. Irvington’s character 
that he seems to appreciate you.” 

On their return, the young ladies passed the site of 
Katharine’s future home, enclosed at that time by a dilapi- 
dated picket-fence. Robert Allston, within the enclosure, 
evidently with mind intent on some builder’s survey, did 
not perceive the approach of the two friends until they 
paused at the gate and called his attention. He needed 
no invitation to join them ; but the trio was broken when 
Miss Crissfield reached her boarding-place in the next 
block. 

After leaving Dora, as the lovers turned to resume their 
southward walk, Katharine’s face, radiant with the delicious 
consciousness of happiness, suddenly lost its light. Her 
careless glance had encountered a too-familiar figure ad- 


A SIGN- OF THE TIMES, 


I3I 

vancing towards them. The first impulse to turn directly 
away was rejected, and a few steps later they passed Mr. 
Irvington. Katharine did not realize how cold and distant 
was the bow she gave. Irvington colored violently, and 
darted a look of mingled anger, jealousy, and reproach at 
Katharine. 

Allston flushed with indignation; the glance had cut 
him like a lash. ‘^Katharine,” said he, hotly, ^^that look 
was an insult to any woman. What did it mean ? Do you 
know Mr. Irvington? ” 

‘‘How did you ever know Mr. Irvington, Robert?” his 
companion asked, unheeding his vehemence in her surprise. 

“ Please answer me, Katie,” insisted her lover. 

It had never occurred to Allston that Katharine could 
have had any affair of the heart previous to their acquaint- 
ance, or that any other man had even thought of her with 
tenderness. It hurt him to recognize such a possibility; 
and a feeling of hatred was excited towards the man who 
had dared cast such a look upon his promised wife. 

Katharine raised her eyes to Robert, quelling the rising 
storm before she answered very quietly : “ Mr. Irvington 
offered himself to me last summer, and I refused him. We 
have not met since, and that glance was probably involun- 
tary. I never cared for him ; my heart never belonged in 
the least to any one but you, Robert. I did not expect 
ever to see that man again. I thought it better never to 
speak or to think of him in any way, that I might the more 
completely forget him.” 

“ Katie, dear, you are the sweetest girl in all the world. 
I’ve let you see what a quick temper I have,” said the 
young man penitently. “ I can’t tell you how it stung me 
to have you receive such a look. I met Mr. Irvington this 
morning. He is the lawyer employed against me in the 
suit, which I begin to think may prove troublesome.” 


132 


HIS BROKEN SWORE. 


Katharine had not given a thought to this impending 
lawsuit. She only knew that a certain Mr. Giddings had 
preferred a claim upon the lot which Robert owned and 
upon which his building was erected, and that this claim 
rested upon a technical flaw in the title in favor of this 
Mr. Giddings, whose father had formerly owned the land. 
The irregularity had occurred when the deceased Mr. Gid- 
dings sold the property to a Mr. Howe. Mr. Howe after- 
wards went to New York and borrowed a sum of money of 
Mr. Walter Allston, an old acquaintance, giving a mortgage 
on the Milwaukee lot to the full amount of the value of the 
property. This mortgage had been foreclosed, and the 
property had passed into the ownership of the elder Allston. 
The title had not been disputed until after the completion 
and occupation of Robert AUston’s building; this delay 
had the appearance of premeditated malice. The claim 
seemed to Allston so manifestly unjust, such a mere legal 
quibble, that he had considered a verdict favorable to him- 
self in the suit as a foregone conclusion. He had put the 
case into the hands of a competent lawyer, and given him- 
self no uneasiness. To his lawyer, Mr. Dempster, the case 
assumed a more serious aspect when he learned that 
Irvington had come on from Omaha to conduct the prose- 
cution ; for Irvington was an uncalculated weight in the 
scale against justice. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


HIDDEN SPRINGS. 


“ Malice hath a sharp sight and a strong memory.” 



WO years earlier, after examining an abstract of 
title to a lot adjoining the present object of 
dispute, Irvington carelessly ran his eye over 
the title following the one in which he was in- 
terested, and detected a flaw which might make trouble for 
the owner, a man by the name of Allston. The property 
in the heart of the city was valuable. The lawyer, almost 
unconsciously, made a mental note of the defective title. 
He thought no more about it; but nothing escaped his 
accurate and retentive memory. 

When, in March, Irvington received a gossipy letter from 
Milwaukee mentioning Miss Kennard’s engagement to a 
Mr. Allston, who had recently put up a building adjoining 
that of a well-known firm, the lawyer’s memory, sharpened 
by jealousy, instantly reverted to the flaw in Allston’s title. 

It took but a brief consideration to enable Irvington 
to mark out his line of action. Into the embittered cur- 
rent of his love had now entered jealousy and revenge. 
The three formed a strong alliance; but from out the 



134 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


fastnesses of human nature another stream was coursing 
on to join them. The weakness and irresolution of an- 
other life, at last gathered together, were no longer merely 
passive. It is a strange transition when the weakness that 
has seemed wholly negative appears as a positive force, 
working destruction without apparent purpose, blindly, but 
inevitably. 

Probably there was not in all Milwaukee a more inoffen- 
sive man than Henry Giddings. There was a wide area of 
uncalculating kindness in the man, and a sort of natural, 
unthinking honesty, very different from integrity, and yet 
in all ordinary affairs serving the purpose of integrity. He 
had always maintained respectability, and had plodded on 
towards old age through years in which the success that 
seemed often within reach had invariably eluded his grasp. 
His two daughters grew up and married, but not prosper- 
ously; and the sons-in-law often needed help. His wife 
attempted to preserve appearances ; but year by year the 
economy exercised in her made-over garments was more 
conspicuous, while the wall-paper throughout the house 
gained dingier dulness, and the hard warp of the American 
tapestry carpets asserted itself more undisguisedly. When 
the wife died, the sorrowing husband sought to make feeble 
amends for her many self-denials by some show of pomp 
and circumstance in her funeral. 

A year after he brought a young wife to the house. The 
dingy paper and threadbare carpets were no longer visible. 
But this second marriage made unanswerable demands 
upon his resources when a family of young children had 
appeared on the scene. The sons-in-law had to shift 
for themselves then. Mr. Giddings completely lost the 
revived aspect of re-married widower, and felt himself sink- 
ing into the hopeless slough of debt. The many needs of 
the little ones pained his kind, fatherly heart, and he pitied 


HIDDEN SPRINGS. 


135 


the rather flashy young mother, who spared neither com- 
plaints nor reproaches. She burst into a passion of tears 
one morning as she told him that she could n’t go out of 
the house because she had not a decent pair of shoes. He 
tried to comfort her, and called her his poor little girl, — she 
was only two years younger than his oldest daughter, — but 
he left home with a very heavy heart. He turned the de- 
pressing state of affairs over and over in his mind, and his 
dull brown eyes only grew more clouded. Borrow he 
must, — it was only a question of whom to borrow. The 
boy came in with the letters. Mr. Giddings opened one 
envelope. It contained a long grocery bill from Hankey 
Brothers, with the announcement that credit was exhausted 
in that direction. Mr. Giddings glanced at the other letters 
before opening them. There was a thick one from Omaha, 
— that at least could not be a dun, — and he recognized 
the handwriting as that of Irvington, whom he had once 
employed. 

This letter proved to be intensely interesting. Mr. Gid- 
dings read it and re-read it. His eyes brightened ; he went 
over to the recorder’s office, and returned smiling ; and then, 
with a hand trembling with eagerness, he answered Irving- 
ton’s letter. The straw had been held out to the drowning 
man. And now the desperation of the husband, goaded on 
by the wants of the little children and the evident discontent 
of his wife, moved onward, and plunged into the torrent of 
Irvington’s passion. 

Irvington congratulated himself on having found a tool 
ready for his hand. He had counted on the cupidity of 
mankind. Little he knew of the countless circumstances, 
the unnumbered years of purposeless endeavor, that had 
prepared the tool for his use ! 

Henry Giddings could not help regarding the lawyer’s 
letter as almost a special providence. In its aspect of wel- 


136 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


come reprieve it lost the character of a temptation. Here 
was a lawful way of obtaining money, and young Allston 
would not feel it. It was rumored that he was engaged to 
Dr. Kennard’s daughter, and that alone insured his future. 
Nobody would be the poorer, and his Mattie should dress 
as well as she did before they were married. He bought 
on trust a new pair of shoes for his Mattie before he 
went home that evening. He could scarcely sleep that 
night, he was so thankful. 


CHAPTER XX. 


AN OPEN ENEMY. 



HEN the suit opened, the Hon. Allan Dempster, 
Allston’s counsel, recognized in the extremely 
cold superciliousness of Irvington’s demeanor 
an evidence that he had taken hold of this case 
with an uncompromising spirit. 

He will throw off that mask and appear in all his war- 
paint when he begins to speak,” was the older lawyer’s 
conclusion; and he was not mistaken. 

A spirit of bitter animosity pervaded the opening argu- 
ment. AUston was stigmatized as a sort of adventurer, — a 
young ex-fighter, architect of unknown antecedents, who did 
not lack the effrontery to come in among them and quietly 
take possession of a piece of property belonging to an hon- 
ored and respected citizen. He had thought to claim vic- 
tory through the sheer boldness of this high-handed opera- 
tion. The rightful owner, unconscious of his claim, had 
seen from his office across the way this edifice of the young 
usurper rising to completion. The audacious pretender 
had built a fine trap for himself, there was no denying that 
(here the speaker made a bow in the direction of the de- 
fendant). The experimentary architect had been shrewd 



138 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


enough to secure good plans and to engage a competent 
builder. The trap was an achievement wholly satisfactory 
to the owner of the property upon which it was built ; his 
rightful share of the rentals would pour in like manna come 
down from heaven. 

When this vein of sarcastic pleasantry was exhausted, 
the lawyer proceeded to unwind his strong chain of legal 
technicalities and precedents ; the points of law, slight in 
themselves, were firmly knit together; and he closed his 
argument with the assertion that the laws of Wisconsin 
were wrought into an invulnerable shield to protect the 
rights of his client. 

Allston was prepared for a fair contest, a hard conflict if 
necessary ; but this brutal personal attack took him wholly 
unawares. He was at first bewildered by this presentation 
of himself in the character of a vulgar swindler ; but as he 
listened to the artful innuendoes, the urbane insults, he 
grew pale with intense anger ; he could scarcely restrain 
himself from starting to his feet and hurling the scathing 
retort that burned within him. It seemed to him that 
his silence might be construed into a confirmation of those 
atrocious insinuations ; he felt at the moment that the evil 
aspersions cast upon him must leave an ineffaceable stain. 
To have his character defamed in public by a man like 
Irvington, and be forced to endure it or to lower himself by 
making a scene in court ! It was intolerable ! He recog- 
nized the subtle enmity, the fierce desire to injure, which 
gave such stinging force to Irvington’s sarcasm ; he rightly 
connected it with Katharine ; and with that thought he 
firmly reined in his anger, and listened to the close of 
Irvington’s argument with unmoved dignity. 

Allston was not more surprised by the course pursued 
by Irvington than was Mr. Giddings, who, indeed, was but 
the figure-head in the case. He was at first bewildered. 


AN OPEN ENEMY. 


139 


then pathetically pleased, by the conspicuous manner in 
which he was brought forward in the case ; it was a novel 
experience for him to be a centre-piece anywhere, or to 
be the object of any consideration. To be posed first as 
a victim, then as a victorious claimant, gave him fresh im- 
portance in his own eyes, and was a gratification to his 
long- famished vanity. In the sweetness of its coating he 
swallowed the miserable pill of falsehood without realizing 
it. He was so captivated by Irvington’s statements that 
for the time he half believed it was a genuine impostor 
who was being exposed. 

The effect of Irvington’s speech was somewhat dispelled 
by the dignified stand taken by the lawyer for the defence, 
who was an elderly man of wide influence and high stand- 
ing. Irvington’s unproved assertions and venomous in- 
sinuations were wholly ignored. Allston’s high credentials 
received their due acknowledgment, and the demand that 
the case should be tried on its merits was followed by an 
able and forcible statement of the rights and claims of the 
defendant. 

The suit continued for several days, and excited general 
interest. From the opening argument the tide was turned 
in favor of the prosecution. The jury, made up, as usual, of 
unthinking men, were all familiar with old Giddings. It was 
against reason to suppose that a plain, commonplace man 
like him, who had always lived among them, minding his 
own business and interfering with no one, should all at 
once take it into his head to press an unjust claim. It 
tickled their sense of humor to think of the old fellow let- 
ting Allston finish the building, before learning that the land 
was his own. Their judgment was also unconsciously in- 
fluenced by the fact that Mr. Giddings belonged to their 
own sphere in life. They did not really believe that the 
young architect was a swindler, but they took it for granted 


140 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


that he was in easy circumstances, or he would not have 
been associated with the Kennards. According to Irving- 
ton’s statements, the law seemed to favor the claim of 
Giddings, and it seemed all right to level down the in- 
equalities of fortune when a fair chance came along. 

When Irvington closed the argument for the plaintiff, 
throwing into it all the force of his acute mind and iron 
will, the jury were convinced that the claim of Giddings 
should be allowed. Neither Mr. Dempster’s argument nor 
Judge Wentworth’s charge to the jury affected their preju- 
dice in favor of the plaintiff. One of the twelve men, 
Mr. Hankey, the grocer, was inclined to think the whole 
thing a “ put-up job,” — to use his mental phraseology ; but 
Hankey had his private reasons for wishing Giddings ’s suc- 
cess. Hankey Brothers had a grocery bill of long standing 
against Giddings, and the chances for the collection of 
the bill would be diminished should this suit be decided in 
favor of the defendant ; and Mr. Hankey did not want to 
stay locked up all night disagreeing over the verdict. He 
hated a stubborn man, any way ; and altogether the reasons 
for his agreeing with the other eleven men seemed good 
enough reasons. Thus it happened that the jury returned 
a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and temporary victory 
was awarded Irvington. 

Judge Wentworth, however, whose mind had perhaps 
an unjudicial bias in favor of justice pure and simple as . 
opposed to mere legal technicalities, granted the motion 
for a new trial. 

Outward warfare was consequently suspended ; but the 
passions which it had excited awaited, unabated, a future 
conflict. 

Doctor Kennard had been greatly interested in the suit. 
He understood Irvington’s private motive in vilifying 
Allston, and he wished to see Irvington defeated no less 


AN OPEN ENEMY. 


I4I 

than he desired Allston’s success. He knew, too, that 
should the suit finally be decided in favor of Mr. Giddings, 
Allston would be cramped financially, and would accept 
pecuniary assistance unwillingly. 

Heretofore, Robert had won easy success in every di- 
rection. Popularity had followed him in college, through 
his army life, and in both social and business relations in 
Milwaukee. 

When the verdict was given against him, Allston felt that 
he had been publicly disgraced, declared to be a swindler; 
and he could not rid himself of the idea. To eventually 
win the suit, was the only satisfactory method of public 
vindication left him. It was now not only a matter of 
pecuniary interest, but of personal honor as well. 

Both delicacy and pride forbade Allston’s saying more 
than was unavoidable to Katharine concerning Irvington’s 
course in the court-room. She would naturally think her- 
self the real cause of the bitter personality. He knew also 
that he could not trust himself to speak of Irvington in 
terms of moderation, and he felt a sensitive dislike to 
recalling or repeating the lawyer’s offensive words. 


CHAPTER XXL 


AN INTERLUDE. 



HE day after the suit closed, Allston took tea at 
the Kennards’. The Doctor and his wife had 
an engagement elsewhere, and it was the young 
lady of the house who presided as hostess. 

Allston was suffering with a severe headache and unusual 
nervousness ; but he found his sweetheart the very picture 
of tranquil happiness, with a cluster of starry narcissus at 
her belt, gleaming like snow against the azure of her dress. 
The gentlest look of sweet concern came into her eyes as 
she perceived that Robert was not well. 

'^You should always wear blue, Katie,” said Robert, 
holding her off at arm’s length, and fondly covering her 
with his gaze. I always thought of you in blue after our 
first meeting, until I saw you again with a pennon of blue 
floating from around your neck in the Lake Superior 
breezes. Do you remember ? ” And Katharine was not 
held at arm’s length as her lover concluded. 

The evening was chilly ; a low open fire blazed on the 
hearth in the dining-room ; the blinds were drawn ; a mel- 
low light fell through the tinted lamp-shade upon the 
table beneath, bringing into relief the snowy damask and 
shining silver, and quivering, slender sprays of lilies-of-the- 


A AT INTERLUDE. 


143 


valley in a vase of crystal. Visible in the conservatory 
beyond, Mrs. Kennard’s tropical plants loomed up in the 
gray twilight. 

These harmonious surroundings, with Katharine looking 
so sweet and domestic in their midst, exerted a soothing 
influence over Allston’s restlessness, and wooed him into 
forgetfulness of his recent rasping sense of injury ; but con- 
trary to its usual effect, a cup of strong coffee increased the 
pain throbbing through his temples. 

Katharine chatted lightly on about one thing and an- 
other, doing her best to entertain and divert her lover, 
unveiling in her sympathy more than her usual tenderness. 
This phase of her nature gave Allston such pleasure 
that he felt it worth the pain which had occasioned its 
manifestation. 

But Katharine said one thing that for the moment broke 
the charm of this quiet interlude. She told her lover that 
Miss Crissfield had been in during the afternoon, deeply 
indignant with Mr. Irvington, whom she denounced as the 
embodiment of envy, hatred, and malice. 

Don’t speak of him, please, Katie,” Allston interposed 
nervously ; and then continued : I believe that man is my 
evil genius. A month ago I had never seen him ; and 
now, turn where I will, I encounter the shadow of Irving- 
ton. It seems that neither you nor I were to escape his 
influence separately ; but when we are together, dear, let us 
wholly banish him and forget him.” 

Soon after eight, Allston was obliged to leave, having an 
imperative engagement to meet Mr. Dempster at one of 
the hotels. 

The two young people parted with reluctance. Allston 
dreaded to throw off the soothing spell of Katharine’s 
presence, and he delayed his departure moment after 
moment. And then, as they stood together at the door, 


144 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


he still lingered, quoting, by way of justification : You 
know — 

“ ‘ I have to say good-night 

To such a host of peerless things, — 

Good-night to fond, uplifted eyes, 

Good-night to — ’ 

not ^the snowy hands’ — what is it comes next? I’ve 
forgotten ; and I really must go. ” And then, with chng- 
ing tenderness, the last good-night was given. 

As Allston turned away into the darkness the thought of 
Katharine was like a lamp in his heart ; then he realized 
a keen sense of physical discomfort as the raw, penetrating 
east wind chilled him, and the pain in his head throbbed 
with insistent violence. The lake was lashing the shore 
with a subdued, angry roar. Now and then a cold drop of 
rain heralded a coming storm. 

As the young man crossed through the court-house 
square he noticed the bars of the old jail windows faintly 
outlined against the dim light within, and gave a thought 
of pity to the poor fellows locked up there. They ought 
to get Irvington to defend them if they wanted to cheat 
justice. Irvington again ! He must take himself in hand, 
and turn resolutely from the thought of that man, dis- 
miss him altogether from his mind. He must regard his 
lawsuit as it originally stood, — merely as a legal contest for 
his rights. If he lost it — why, it would be only a piece 
of legal injustice. He had never cherished an enmity in his 
life, and it was lowering himself to let this animosity gain 
such ascendency. He would go down to Chicago the 
next day and efface these recent impressions. 

Mr. Dempster was already waiting when Allston reached 
the hotel. The necessary conference was not long, but the 
lawyer was in an unusually talkative mood. He started on 
speculations as to the state of Mr. Giddings’s finances ; then 


AJV INTERLUDE. 


145 


rambled on from one point to another. No one could con- 
vince him that Giddings had known of this defective title 
until recently. Then with a sudden feeling of exasperation 
towards Irvington, he rashly expressed it as his opinion 
that Irvington was in some way at the bottom of the whole 
scheme. He probably had his eyes on his own possible 
share of profit from “the trap,” and was craving for his 
own taste of the manna. 

Allston listened in silence ; but this aimless talk affected 
him, nevertheless, and set in rebellion the recently quelled 
feelings of animosity. He felt a positive relief in having 
his own unspoken suspicions expressed by an older and 
more experienced man. 

A heavy splash of rain against the window warned Mr. 
Dempster that the storm was breaking, and he speedily 
took his departure. 

Allston went down to the reading-room to look over the 
evening papers before retiring. 


CHAPTER XXII. 




“A MOMENT OF ETERNITY.” 

ALF a dozen persons were in the reading-room ; 
among them was Irvington. An expression of 
haughty, sneering insolence had become habit- 
ual with him. The man was too self-absorbed 
to be aware that he was generally disliked, but he knew 
that he found people in general disagreeable. The fires 
of jealous fury were working destruction in his heart, and 
there was something antagonizing to better men in his 
very presence. 

This evening there was an ugly look in his eye, and a 
sullen expression about his mouth that gave warning of 
a dangerous mood. He hated an east wind, it always 
made him savage ; and he was angry with Dora Crissfield, 
who had dared to speak her mind to him in regard to his 
attack on Allston in terras incapable of favorable construc- 
tion. She had made him feel that she despised him, and 
he inwardly winced under her thrusts : this served as an 
additional grudge against the Allston- Kennard combination. 
Politics chanced to be the subject of conversation in the 
reading-room. Irvington expressed an opinion not in ac- 
cordance with the sentiment of the others present when 
he said it was a good thing for the South that their arch- 



A MOMENT OF ETERNITY: 


147 

enemy Lincoln was out of the way before Reconstruction 
was attempted. 

“ What do you say to that, Colonel ? Are n’t you ready 
to take up the gauntlet in defence of our murdered Presi- 
dent?” asked some one, turning to Allston, who had 
entered the room in time to hear Irvington’s remark. 

Allston felt perfectly justified in meeting his enemy on 
this purely impersonal question. Lincoln was his idol. 
He was in Washington at the time of the assassination ; 
his mind for days afterwards had been steeped in eulogies 
of the President. He could have given an oration on 
the subject with no preparation ; and as he accepted the 
challenge the words seemed to come of themselves. 

“The South lost her most powerful friend in the death 
of Lincoln,” he began, gathering warmth as he proceeded. 
“ He was more than the President of the North, he was 
the President of the United States ; he was the great rep- 
resentative of American character ; the proof of what type 
of man can be produced by radical American ideas of 
equality ; the rare evidence of what simple force and in- 
tegrity, united with love to God and love to man, can 
achieve. No man in the North could have been more 
ready to show generosity to the South, none more ready 
to wipe out the stains of war, restore the blessings of peace, 
and to weld again the broken bonds of unity. He was 
the ideal ruler, — at once the defender, the friend, and the 
faithful servant of the people. The very honors conferred 
on him were transmuted into mediums through which his 
intrinsic worth and power could be utilized for the service 
of those who honored him.” 

He had said more than he intended ; but this reply to 
Irvington was warmly received by the Republican faction. 

“ The young fellow quotes very glibly,” the lawyer mut- 
tered in an audible undertone. 


148 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Flushing hotly, Allston turned away, and ran his eye over 
the headings of a newspaper which he had taken up. 

Irvington approached nearer, saying in a low, offensive 
tone : “ Since you are so enraptured with the divine quali- 
ties of the nigger-lover, you perhaps cherish the fond delu- 
sion that Kitty Kennard is a paragon of perfection.” 

Allston kept his eyes riveted upon the paper, but felt 
himself growing rigid with passion. 

Watching his adversary narrowly, Irvington, who seemed 
possessed by some malignant demon, continued, without 
a pause : “ If you knew Kitty as I do, you would change 
your opinion. I tell you, that girl — ” The rest, the 
deadly insult, was hissed into Allston’s ear. 

The fury within Allston was unleashed now. All con- 
sciousness was swept into the one over-mastering impulse 
to avenge the insult to Katharine and to silence the voice 
that had dared utter those words. 

One breathless instant, and the strong young arm was 
raised ; sinews of iron clenched the hand, and one power- 
ful blow was struck, swiftly followed by another. In the 
inspiration of intense passion, both blows were aimed with 
fatal precision at the temple. 

Irvington fell heavily to the floor. Others rushed to his 
assistance and laid the motionless body on one of the read- 
ing-tables. A physician who happened to be in the hotel 
was in the room without loss of time : with his hand upon 
the faintly fluttering heart, his face grew deeply serious. 
He looked at the discolored mark of Allston’s knuckles on 
the temple, then laid his hand again upon the heart : the 
feeble motion was scarcely perceptible now. The hush of 
suspense had fallen upon the group surrounding that still 
form; the silence was broken by the low, startling words 
from the doctor, — 

** It is all over with him, the man is dead.” 


A MOMENT OF ETEFNITY: 


149 


Allston was leaning against the wall, standing motionless 
with folded arms. His headache was gone ; his passion 
had exhausted itself ; he was absolutely calm and collected, 
and his perceptions were preternaturally clear. The doc- 
tor’s low words, “The man is dead,” reached him with the 
full force of their meaning. Like a white-hot iron, they 
seared the brand of “ murderer ” upon his soul. 

No one spoke to Allston ; he stood there in his sudden 
and horrible isolation until he could endure it no longer ; 
then turned to the man nearest him, saying : “ You had 
better have me arrested ; I am nt)t wanted here.” 

It had cost him a terrible effort to speak, to assert his 
awful existence ; and his voice sounded strangely un- 
natural. 

Not wanted there ! No, nor in any place on the whole 
earth. He was that fearful thing, — a murderer, an out- 
cast. Through what depths of misery must he pass before 
the full meaning of those words, “murderer, outcast,” 
should be measured ! Was not hell a bottomless pit? It 
was easy to believe that now. 

Why did not an officer come to arrest him ? Some one 
was going to break the news to the dead man’s mother, to 
tell her that her son was murdered. It was not only a man 
that he had struck, then, he had crushed some woman’s 
heart ; and — oh ! unspeakable horror ! — Katharine ! The 
room grew black before him now. No one on earth or in 
heaven could save her from the blow, — the blow that he 
had struck with his own hand ; his loving Katie in her blue 
dress and white flowers : why, a narcissus from her belt 
was in his button-hole now ! 

The room was filling rapidly. Men were beginning to 
look at him furtively, as if they knew he could not meet 
their eyes. Good heavens ! Would the officer never come ? 
He glanced at the clock ; it had stopped, — but no, he heard 


50 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


it tick ; and yet it could not be that but one half-hour had 
passed since he entered that room. 

His anxious eye sees the officer at last. Scarce a word 
passed between the two men before they quietly left. 

In the midst of his agony Allston felt thankful for release 
from the terrible ordeal of the last few moments ; thankful 
to go to jail, to prison, to death, — anywhere away from the 
sight of men. But the luxury of solitude was denied him. 

“The jail’s pretty full. Colonel ; I’ll have to put you in 
a cell with another man,” said the sheriff, apologetically. 

The sheriff had been in the army, and he hated to lock 
up a soldier. 

“ It ’s a pity you did n’t give up fighting when the war 
was over,” he continued, in an awkward attempt to com- 
bine sympathy with condemnation, holding the attitude 
of a soldier towards a superior officer, and a sheriff to- 
wards a prisoner. 

There was no light in the cell. Allston heard the deep 
breathing of the man already asleep there, but had no idea 
of his surroundings, otherwise than that the close atmos- 
phere gave an impression of contracted space. He felt for 
a match, and found that he had none ; but presently the 
sheriff returned and handed him a candle. 

“ I guess I can trust you with that for a few minutes, 
Colonel ; but I ’ll have to come for it pretty soon.” 

One glance revealed the fact that the furniture in the cell 
consisted of a single bed and nothing else. 

“ I shall not go to bed to-night,” said Allston ; “ can you 
let me have a chair? ” 

“ Oh, certainly ! Yes. We don’t furnish chairs for the 
regular occupants ; but with you it ’s different. And I guess 
you might as well keep the candle if you ain’t going to 
bed.” Then, after it had been arranged that Dr. Ken- 


A MOMENT OF ETERNITY.' 


nard should be sent for at daylight, the sheriff took his 
departure. 

The tallow candle seemed to increase the closeness of 
the stifling atmosphere, and Allston soon extinguished it ; 
forgetting as he did so that he had no matches with which 
to relight it. He was possessed by a wild desire to keep 
in motion ; but the close quarters cramped his movements, 
and the man beside him turned uneasily and gave signs of 
arousing. 

All through that interminable night Allston sat there in 
the darkness, trying to grasp the reality in all its bearings. 
He could not concentrate his mind. At first his wandering 
thoughts hovered near Katharine. She was still sleeping, 
all unconscious of impending doom. Would that she need 
never awaken ; would that dawn need never break ! 

But other faces came to haunt him. The dead man 
seemed lying beside him, icy dead, with that cruel sneer 
forever stamped upon his features. And again, out from 
the darkness appeared the eyes of Irvington’s mother, — 
that pale, serious, dark-eyed woman whom Allston knew by 
sight. What mute, unutterable reproach looked out from 
the depths of those eyes now ! 

Fraught with an aching sense of desolation came the 
thought of his own father and mother. The old familiar, 
sacred thought, so filled with tenderness blended with half 
conscious hope, was gone, buried beneath the great wave 
of destruction ; and in its place was left the dread question : 
Did they, too, know ? Had his furious blows struck even 
them in the life beyond? Had no dear one been out of 
his reach ? Turn where he would, there was no light. This, 
then, was the end of all his hopes, all his affections, all his 
high resolves, — this suffocating cell in a jail, the past a 
blank, the future a black, unfathomable abyss. Through 
the dull misery and sense of unreality enveloping him 


152 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


darted pangs of intolerable anguish. Armed with stings 
of torture, rushed a throng of tender memories and cher- 
ished hopes ; but cutting deeper, down to the very centre 
of life itself, pierced the realization that he was in thought 
and deed a murderer. The life that he had taken was 
beyond recall. In a moment of passion he had hurled 
a brother man into eternity, at the moment when that 
man’s soul was dyed with the most cruelly evil intent 
towards an innocent woman. He dimly felt that even yet 
life held for him possibilities of repentance and expiation ; 
but what if it were true that in the life beyond there were 
no such possibilities? Irvington’s very sin which had 
caused the blow to fall ought to have stayed his hand. 
Was he not his brother’s keeper? To avenge an insult 
he had dared turn the mighty issues of life and death. If 
there was a hell, it was hell into which he had plunged his 
enemy. It was no longer the silent dead body, but the 
living, agonizing soul of Irvington which seemed so near. 
The enmity itself had died to rise again in this awful 
fellowship of sin and suffering. 

Deep was the knowledge of the underlying fact of human 
existence — the brotherhood of man — that was given to 
Allston that night, and fearful was the price that it cost 
him. No sophistry of lawyer or philosopher could soften 
his crime in his own eyes. He knew what he had done, as 
none other could know. Before the unseen tribunal of 
God, his own soul, and Irvington’s accusing spirit, the 
verdict was given ; and from that court there was no 
appeal. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


A lawyer’s opinion. 

faint rays of morning light began to penetrate 
even into the jail, Robert nerved himself for 
the coming day. 

That night had done the work of years. To 
his own consciousness Allston seemed now to have always 
been a murderer ; all realization of former happiness had 
passed away. He dimly wondered if he should ever see 
Katharine again. Perhaps in her womanly pity she might 
come to him ; but he hoped that he should never see her 
again, — he could not even touch her hand ; and how could 
he meet either her accusing or her pitying eyes ? But why 
think of that? Even she must turn away from him now. 

It happened that Dr. Kennard was at home when the 
fatal encounter between Allston and Irvington took place. 
The messenger sent in the morning abruptly broke the 
news as he and the Doctor left the house. As the boy 
told the story, it seemed to the Doctor simply incredible ; 
but ten minutes later, when he looked into the face of 
Robert Allston, he saw the tragedy written there, and 
needed no further confirmation of the startling news. 

Allston was prepared for the interview. Few words were 
said on either side ; but the Doctor’s unspoken sympathy 
with the suffering man was appreciated. 



54 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Briefly Allston related the occurrence of the evening be- 
fore ; his voice was almost inaudible when he mentioned 
the name of Katharine. 

“ I cannot tell even you what he said in that connection, 
Doctor ; I can never repeat it, in mercy to the dead. I 
do not want to blame him ; I do not want to excuse my- 
self : but if you had heard what I heard, you would under- 
stand it all.” 

As they were about to part, Allston said, with great hesi- 
tation : “ You will break it most gently to your daughter, I 
know; you have been such a good friend to me always, 
and now I must ask you to take a share in this dreadful 
work, — I must ask you to give this deadly hurt to your 
daughter. Do you think that I don’t realize what a return 
I am making for all your friendship? ” 

Robert, don’t torture yourself with such thoughts,” 
said the Doctor, seeing how every fibre in Allston’s heart 
was quivering with pain. 

Robert rallied to something of his usual decision as he 
answered : “ Do not try to soften my crime in her eyes. 
It will be best for her if she turns from me at once and 
forever.” 

Finding the other occupant of the cell up and dressed 
when he returned, Allston threw himself upon the mattress 
of straw which served as a bed ; and overcome by the ex- 
haustion of the night, he fell into a heavy sleep. 

Hours passed before he was awakened, — not suddenly 
and rudely by the oaths of rough prisoners, but gradually, 
as the strains of martial music penetrated his consciousness. 
Was he in camp ? Where was he ? And then the return- 
ing tide of recollection swept over him. Even rest meant 
only strength renewed for suffering. 

The music grew fainter and fainter as the passing band 
moved up the street. From the cell next Allston’s came 


A LAWYER'S OPINION. 


155 


the high-pitched voice of a Methodist crank declaring his 
innocence of the charge of incendiarism for which he was 
arrested, and wandering into a droning exposition of the 
laws of Moses, and dwindling into an indistinct mumble 
when another voice curtly remarked, “ Shut up, can’t you ? ” 

Allston sat up and looked across into the opposite cell. 
Its sole occupant, a boy of fourteen or thereabouts, was 
completely absorbed in an illustrated story-paper of the 
most sensational class. 'I'he boy’s clothes were clean, his 
skin was fair and soft as a girl’s. As he raised his blue 
eyes to the top of a column, they gave out a clear light ; but 
their intent look told how eagerly he was drinking in the 
contents of the paper. The stream itself was poisoned, 
but it may have been only its freight of brilliant and thrill- 
ing adventure which enthralled the reader. 

In the cell beyond, a group of four lounged on the straw 
bed playing cards. A burly back, a thick, brawny neck 
surmounted by a shock of bristling hair, was all that was 
visible of the figure next the door. His partner sat in the 
light which mercilessly fell on a rat-like face with receding 
forehead, with sharp, restless, opaque black eyes, with thin 
lips and pointed chin. The lines of cruelty about his 
mouth were half hidden by a sparse growth of reddish 
beard. His frequent smile disclosed long, narrow teeth. 
He played his game with fierce attention, closely watching 
the others. This man had been in jail for a year, and 
meant to stave off his trial for forgery as long as possible. 
In the mean time he systematically won at cards any loose 
change that happened to be in the possession of prisoners 
who would take a game with him. A good-natured, lazy 
young Irishman, scantily attired, having nothing to lose and 
no ability to win, was playing for fun, and freely indulged 
in yawns and jokes, to the evident annoyance of his part- 
ner, who completed the quartet. 


56 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


How utterly outside the pale of his own existence those 
men seemed to Allston ! As he turned indifferently from 
them, his eyes encountered the other remaining inmate of 
the jail. Leaning his head listlessly against the grated door 
stood a tall, dull-eyed youth of eighteen, with large tears 
coursing slowly down his sallow cheeks. There was scarcely 
a gleam of intelligence in the weak face, and not a line of 
energy in the limp figure. 

A little stir in the entry, and the sheriff’s wife came bust- 
ling towards the door, saying brightly to the apathetic crea- 
ture : Ben, here ’s your pa ; walked in all the fifteen miles 
from home just to see you. Guess you ’re glad he ’s come, 
ain’t you, now ? ” 

The little faded elderly man, full half a head shorter than 
his son, hesitatingly advanced, shrinking timidjy from the 
possible stare of other prisoners. Ben’s only greeting was 
an increase of tears and a nervous twitching of the muscles 
about his mouth ; but the two shook hands. 

“ I ’ve brought yer some terbaccy, Bennie,” said the 
father, consolingly. He fumbled awhile in the depths of 
his pocket before producing his offering. 

“ The boys in here gim’ me some onct,” said Ben, feebly 
wiping off his tears with a dingy square of cotton. 

Then followed an aching void of silence. When its 
weight became unbearable, the father again reached his 
hand through the bars, saying : “ I guess I’ll have to go 
now, Bennie. Yer ma ’s well. Good-bye ! I hope ye ’ll 
live to come back from prison.” 

The man turned away, wiping his eyes. Ben gazed 
mournfully after him. 

The father had taken a day’s precious time and a weary 
walk of fifteen miles for this visit. In their dumb way had 
they understood each other, and found some comfort even 
in the sad constraint of that interview ? 


A LAWYER’S OPINION. 


157 


The scene had interested and aroused Allston. That 
helpless, overgrown, feeble-minded boy to be sent to 
prison ! Were such things done in Milwaukee with the 
knowledge and consent of men like Allan Dempster and 
Judge Wentworth? Was this one of the undercurrents of 
life of which he had but the vaguest notions ? Were there 
evils like this to be remedied? Were there poor creatures 
like that to be cared for, and no echo of their wrongs 
found its way to the ears of the people who filled the 
churches and prayed for “ all sorts and conditions of men ” ? 
And had those same people never heard the words, “ I was 
sick and in prison, and ye visited me not”? Why this 
endless calling upon God to do the work that men could 
do ; or rather to undo the results of the carelessness and 
indifference of those in power? This little outburst of 
righteous indignation aroused the young man for the mo- 
ment to the recognition of the world outside himself ; but 
the blaze of indignation was quenched in the grinding 
sense of his own present powerlessness to help any one, 
the poignant regret for his forfeited manhood. 

Allston was beginning to feel faint from his long fast, 
when a sickening odor of boiled cabbage and corned beef 
announced that preparations for dinner were in progress ; 
and soon after that mid-day meal made its appearance, 
served in dingy and battered tin ware. 

Two hours later Mr. Dempster called upon Allston. As 
the young man advanced to meet his lawyer he flushed 
with a painful sense of humiliation at being seen behind 
the bars. All the natural dignity of self-respect was torn 
from him for the moment, and for the first time in his life 
he endured the wretched misery of shame. The older 
man divined this instantly, and repressed all expressions of 
sympathy. 

This is a bad scrape. Colonel, and an unfortunate turn 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


158 

# 

of our lawsuit; but I think we shall be able to make a 
strong defence. The thing was really an accident. I shall 
make a hard fight for your acquittal.” 

Accident ! ” Defence ! ” “ Acquittal ! ” What a re- 
freshing sound those words had in the usual matter-of-fact 
tones of the lawyer. They were bracing as a whiff of west 
wind ; but they did not shift the bearings of the situation 
in the mind of Allston. 

‘‘ Do you think I could accept an acquittal ? Do you 
think any jury under heaven could acquit me in my own 
eyes, or could give any value to life or liberty after this ? 
I am a murderer, but I am not yet a sneak or a coward.” 
This avowal was made with a flash of the military spirit 
which had distinguished Robert in the army. 

The lawyer looked grave as he replied : I hope that 
you are not bent upon doing anything rash. Colonel All- 
ston. I am an older man than you. I have had a long 
experience in law-practice, and I know something of 
human nature. I tell you it is impossible for a man to 
keep up to the heroic stand you are taking. You» are 
young, vigorous, and honorable ; you have your rights, 
and it is your right to have a fair trial. Any man would 
have been excusable in striking Irvington ; that you killed 
him was a mere — mischance. There was no murder about 
it. It must be tried as a case of manslaughter ; but it is 
just one of the cases that will appeal to the sympathy of a 
jury. The case must lie over; you will be out on bail; 
by the next term of court all excitement connected with 
the matter will have cooled, and we shall have our defence 
fully prepared.” 

“ As to legal evasions and moral subterfuges, I will have 
nothing to do with them. I shall not consent to a trial under 
any circumstances. I wish my fate to be settled as quietly 
and speedily as possible,” was the uncompromising reply. 


A LAWYER'S OPINION. 


159 


“You know nothing of what a long term of imprison- 
ment would be to an active, high-strung young man like 
yourself. You can’t conceive of the effect of those drag- 
ging years, — and there ’s no justice in it ; you don’t deserve 
it ! ” To legally biassed eyes, Robert’s decision appeared 
mere obstinate folly. 

“ Mr. Dempster, you cannot judge for me. If you 
should kill a man, then you might feel as I do ; you would 
see things then as you cannot see them now. You need 
not envy me this moral illumination, however ; it ’s not 
worth the price. I should despise myself if I tried to 
escape what I feel to be the just consequences of my own 
act. Do you think that I don’t realize what provocation 
I had ? I wish that I could forget it. But I realize, too, 
that if ever man desired to blot out the existence of 
another, that desire overwhelmed me when I struck Mr. 
Irvington.” 

You are speaking under the strongest excitement ; all 
this matter is too near your present consciousness; you 
must recover from the terrible shock before you decide 
upon any course. No man is fit to be his own lawyer.” 

Mr. Dempster began to realize the uselessness of argu- 
ment, but was determined upon securing time in which 
to work in the interest of his client, even without the young 
man’s consent. 

“ There is a question that I must ask,” resumed Allston ; 
“ did any one besides myself hear what Mr. Irvington said 
to me before I struck him } ” 

“No one seems to know exactly what was said, but 
there is an impression that the name of a young lady was 
mentioned in some way — well — characteristic of Mr. 
Irvington.” 

Allston’s face hardened. “ I had hoped that sAe might 
be spared this,” he said bitterly. “ My only defence,” he 


l60 HIS BROKEN SWORD. 

added, wearily, — feeling deep in his heart how strong a 
defence it was, — “ the only defence possible, would drag 
her name before the public, and coupled with Mr. Irving- 
ton’s. Do you think I could endure that ? I’d rather be 
hanged, or wear out my whole life in prison. You know — 
we were — she w'as my promised wife,” he said, dropping 
his voice, and with a look of unutterable misery in his 
gray eyes. “ To shield her from any acknowledged share 
in this matter is the last thing I can ever do for her.” 

“ Noblesse oblige^' the lawyer admitted ; “ but it ’s an 
awful sacrifice that you are contemplating. We won’t talk 
about it to-day ; but it will never do for a than to act upon 
a rash impulse in an affair of this importance.” 

“ Call it a rash impulse if you like ; but as I look at the 
matter I have no alternative. What Irvington said does 
not belong to any court ; it is between that dead man and 
me. He paid for it with his life, and it will be buried with 
him. I have not paid for his life yet, but I took it, and I 
am going to pay for it. As far as human law goes, I in- 
tend to square this thing.” 

‘‘ It ’s useless to argue with you to-day,” replied Mr. 
Dempster. “We will both sleep over it.” He felt no con- 
fidence that sleeping over it would alter Allston’s decision, 
but he was resolved to do nothing to carry that decision 
into effect until obliged to do so. 

After the lawyer had left, the minutes of the long after- 
noon dragged slowly by. Allston had declined to look at 
the Milwaukee papers, and the New York dailies handed 
him by Mr. Dempster soon ceased to interest. The other 
prisoners were civil, but showed no inclination towards 
familiarity, and the young man was left undisturbed to the 
gloomy companionship of his own thoughts. He began 
to feel the confinement irksome, and to long for exercise 
and fresh air ; and then, too, insensibly there stole into his 


A LAWYER'S OPINION. 


l6l 


heart such a yearning for Katharine, and such a consum- 
ing pity for the suffering girl, and racking anxiety as to 
what effect the news had upon her. He could not know 
that all the day long she had been walking up and down 
her room, speechless, stung into an agony of pain and 
restlessness, seeking no sympathy, hearing none of her 
mother’s tender words, looking like a bewildered, hunted 
creature vainly seeking escape. 

Not till late in the afternoon, when Dora Crissfield came 
in, with the tears raining over her face, was the spell of 
Katharine’s silence broken ; then, throwing herself into the 
arms of her friend, she exclaimed in a tone of wild in- 
treaty : “ I want to see Robert ! Take me to see Robert ! 
I cannot bear this without Robert ! And don’t you know 
how he must want me? ” 


II 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


woman’s weakness. 



HE town-clock struck five. Each stroke sounded 
clear in the still air of the beautiful May even- 
ing. There were steps in the entry outside the 
grated door of the jail. Robert Allston looked 
up ; the light fell upon the approaching form of Dr. Ken- 
nard, and the slight figure of a girl closely veiled was 
beside him. 

Was it sudden joy or sudden fear that for a moment un- 
nerved Allston? But he knew that he must go forward, and 
he dared not hesitate. He intended to establish at once 
the change in their relations ; but as Katharine came to- 
wards the bars tliat separated them, and threw back her 
veil, he saw the terrible change in her face ; and when 
she thrust her two imploring, ungloved hands through the 
bars to him, all else was borne from his realization, save 
only that Katharine, his darling, had received a deadly 
hurt and had come to him for help. 

She was trembling from head to foot, and he could hear 
the tumultuous beating of her heart in that first moment of 
silence when he took her fluttering hands within his own. 
Under the influence of his touch she grew more quiet ; her 
head drooped for support against the iron bars. The 
drawn muscles of her face relaxed. She fixed her eyes on 


WOMAN^S WEAKNESS. 


163 

Robert’s face, and their eager, hungry look faded slowly, 
until she faintly smiled ; her breath came regularly ; she 
was terribly pale and weary, but for the moment her agony 
was gone. 

“ Robert,” she said softly, dear Robert, you are such 
a comfort ! ” She seemed to have forgotten who it was 
that had hurt her. “It has been horrible all this long 
eternity without you, and now we are together again ! ” 
Her eyes closed for a moment. 

The Doctor watched his daughter with intense attention 
and anxiety ; he feared for her reason when her mind 
should arouse into activity. Both he and Robert saw that 
she was so stunned by the shock and the first horrible 
throe of anguish that she was incapable of comprehending 
the meaning of what had occurred. When she opened her 
eyes she seemed to have gathered strength, and spoke 
more naturally. 

“ Robert, it is n’t true, dear, — it can’t be true ; for you 
are just the same as always, only some way you look ever so 
much older. If you tell me just once that it is n’t true, I 
shall believe you forever, if all the world is against you. 
Robert, tell me it is n’t true; ” and she looked at him 
with such faith and entreaty in her eyes as if she felt that 
it rested with him to make that horror unreal, and that for 
love of her he must make it unreal. 

It was the most torturing form of that inevitable ques- 
tion, “ Guilty, or not guilty? ” Holding those tender hands 
of Katharine’s, he could not even clench his own ; for her 
sake he must bear that agony without a quiver, all his 
strength must go out to strengthen her. 

Robert’s face blanched, but there was no other visible 
sign of suffering as he looked steadily into her eyes and 
firmly held her hands. 

“It is true, Katharine.” The words were most gently 


164 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


spoken, in a steady tone, and not even the shudder that 
passed over her unnerved him then ; he understood that 
he alone could make it possible for her to bear the blow ; 
and in the same low, tender voice he continued : “It was 
very friendly and sweet of you to come to see me, Kathar- 
ine j and you will come again to-morrow, or next day, will 
you not? It will be a great comfort for me to see you 
again. But now you are so very tired I want you to let 
your father take you home. It is better for us both that 
we have seen each other ; and when you come again, if you 
want to speak to me of what has happened, you shall. It 
all seems as strange and incomprehensible to me as it does 
to you. And now, dear, will you go and try to rest?^’ 

She raised her eyes to his for a moment, softly whispered 
“ Good-bye ! ” and turned to her father. 

Robert did not glance towards the Doctor, nor hear his 
parting words, nor the opening and closing of the door 
as they two passed out. Before this he had thought of 
what he had done ; now he had seen part of the ruin he 
had wrought. 

He went into, his cell and closed the creaking iron door. 
The daylight faded, supper was sent in with its clatter of 
tins, and the blue-eyed boy rapped to summon Allston, but 
received no answer ; the twilight deepened into darkness, 
but still no sound was heard within that cell. 

Late in the evening the sheriff came in with a light, and 
a note for Allston. The sheriff was startled by the changed 
and haggard face of the prisoner, and stopped for a few 
moments’ chat, concluding with the remark ; “ You ’ll have 
the cell to yourself to-night, Colonel ; the man that was in 
here last night had his trial this morning, and got clear. 
The fellow could n’t give bail, and was locked up for eight 
months, losing work and wages ; and now it turns out that 
he was innocent. Naturally, he feels pretty sore about it. 


WOMAN^S WEAKNESS. 


165 


He has no money to waste in trying to recover damages ; 
and if a man can’t pay for justice, he need n’t expect it ’s 
coming to him as a free gift. It ’s hard luck when a poor 
man gets into a scrape ; though people that can pay for it 
generally manage to buy justice — or injustice — as they 
happen to want it. Money commands the use of other 
people’s brains ; and it ’s brains that win, nine times out 
of ten, no matter which side they’re on. Irvington was 
an awful smart lawyer. Excuse me. Colonel,” added the 
sheriff, as Allston involuntarily winced at this inadvertent 
mention of Irvington. 

That ’s all right,” answered Robert, proceeding to open 
the note the sheriff had brought. It was from Dr. Kennard, 
and ran as follows : — 

“ Katharine is resting quietly and naturally. After our re- 
turn, a reaction from the shock of the morning came on in the 
form of overpowering drowsiness, and early in the evening she 
fell into a deep sleep. I hope that you will get some rest 
yourself to-night.” 


CHAPTER XXV. 


woman’s strength. 

FHARINE’S slumber lasted unbroken all 
through the night and far into the next day. 
She awoke near noon with a strange feeling 
of change ; but at first she could not remember 
what had happened. She seemed to have been with 
Robert, listening to his voice, her hands held in his ; 
and then the reality came back to her, — vaguely as to the 
effect upon herself, but clear in its outlines in relation to 
Robert. 

How could she be sleeping while Robert was suffering? 
And with renewed energy and spirit she arose to face life 
in its changed aspect. She spoke naturally to her father 
and mother when she met them downstairs, and went with 
them to dinner. She could not speak of what had occurred, 
and Mrs. Kennard, who was prepared for this ordeal, 
chatted composedly to the Doctor. 

As they left the dining-room Katharine said to her 
father : ‘‘ I wish that you would take me to Robert at 
four o’clock.” And without waiting for a reply, she threw 
a shawl around her, and made her escape to the piazza. 
Above all things she wanted to be alone, — free to think 
without interruption. 



WOMAN'S STRENGTH. 


167 

As her father was leaving the house she detained him to 
hear from him again all that he knew concerning the 
tragedy. She wanted to hold all the threads firmly before 
meeting Robert again. She had herself well in hand now, 
and she meant to keep her feelings in check, that she 
might better be able to understand what had happened. 

A light, fresh breeze was blowing ; the deep-blue waves 
of Lake Michigan broke upon the shore with a regular, 
rocking movement. Katharine felt herself never so truly 
alone as when in the companionship of the lake ; it seemed 
to furnish a background of infinity for her thoughts. For 
more than an hour she walked the piazza with her mind 
concentrated upon this new, dark page in her life and 
Robert’s, reading it over and over again, and entering more 
deeply into its meaning. One line running through it was 
clear enough to her : if Robert had not loved her, this 
could never have happened. It was awful to think that 
out of their pure and priceless love for each other had 
sprung this fatal deed ; but t/ Robert had not loved her.) this 
could never have happened. 

When the Doctor came back for his daughter, she was 
ready and waiting. As she passed down the garden-path 
beside the bed of narcissus, the starry flowers nodded and 
bent their heads towards her. She paused and gathered 
a cluster of the fragrant blossoms before entering the 
carriage. 

Katharine threw back her veil and looked brightly up 
to Robert as she neared the grating behind which he was 
standing. A quick-drawn sigh escaped her when she saw 
his altered countenance and read the traces of what he 
had suffered. 

I am stronger to-day, Robert ; I have come to share 
your trouble, and to help you to endure it,” were her first 
words. 


i68 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Robert’s heart was cheered to see her again so like her 
old self, notwithstanding her white face and that look of 
maturity which a great sorrow gives even to the young ; and 
all the strength of her womanhood seemed to shine out in 
the steady light of her eyes. 

“ It does me good to see you looking so much better,” 
he answered. “ I almost dreaded meeting you again after 
yesterday; but that long sleep has done a blessed work. 
Yes, I know about it ; your father sent me word last night, 
and again this morning.” 

And then Katharine gave him the narcissus she had 
brought. 

‘‘ I think they will make you feel as if you had a part of 
me with you,” she said, dropping her eyes half shyly, — a 
movement characteristic of her when making any little 
advance. 

Robert took the flowers with his left hand. As he did 
so, Katharine’s eyes fell upon a dark line of discoloration 
running across the fingers of his right hand. She started 
with a slight, involuntary shudder, and glancing up ner- 
vously, she intercepted an expression in Robert’s eyes that 
cut her to the soul. For the moment she could not speak ; 
but she laid her own hand tenderly across the dark line on 
his, covering it from their sight. How she longed for the 
miraculous touch of healing just then, before she found 
voice to say, in a gentle, assuring tone, — 

It will not always be there ; before long every trace of 
it will be gone. And now,” she continued, with a change 
of tone, “ I want you to tell me all that concerns yourself, 
and what Mr. Dempster says about your prospects.” 

The Doctor had been obliged to leave Katharine for 
a little while, and she and Robert settled into a long 
and earnest conversation. Robert expressed himself very 
frankly with but one reservation, and Katharine was irre- 


WOMAN'S STRENGTH. 


169 

sistibly drawn into sympathy with his feelings in regard to 
the course he had decided upon. While listening to him 
she was able to consider the situation outside of its relation 
to herself ; to feel that the thing now to be thought of was 
what would be the highest line of action for Robert. How- 
ever, she did not think that Robert estimated his own 
rights fairly. 

“ Do you suppose that I should care what use was made 
of my name in order to secure justice for you ? ” she said 
with spirit. “ Why, I would not hesitate to go into court 
and stand beside you and say, *’ He did it for my sake ; I 
am his promised wife.’ Whatever is best for you, is best 
for me ; there can be no division of our interests.” 

Robert stood a moment in silent thought ; then surprised 
her with the simple question : Katharine, do you love 
me?” 

“ Oh, Robert ! ” was her only answer. 

“Then, dear, never again try to tempt me from doing 
what I know to be right and honorable, — and it might not 
alter the result. Judge Wentworth will know all that you 
know ; he will not be unjust.” 

“ You are so brave and true to yourself. You are n’t 
one bit changed,” she began ; then she suddenly broke 
down, leaned her head against the bars, and her whole 
frame was shaken by her sobs. They were the first tears 
she had shed. 

Her distressed lover — for the moment he was again her 
lover — comforted her as only he could ; and when he in- 
advertently called her “ Katie, darling,” she raised her wet 
eyes with a sudden glad light in them, and whispered with 
impassioned tenderness : “ We have still each other ; we 
have still each other ! These tears don’t mean anything, 
only that you are so good ; and it breaks my heart to think 
that if it had n’t been for me, you would not be here now.” 


170 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


“Never, never think that,” entreated Robert. 

“ I shall think what is true, and learn to bear the truth, 
'fhe future looks black to us now, but light and strength 
will come. Others have lived through dreadful experi- 
ences, and we 're not going to despair,” said Katharine 
courageously. 

“ You 're like a blade of Damascus steel, Katie, — one 
moment bowed beneath the weight of your tears, and the 
next erect and strong as ever.” 

“Damascus steel is to be relied on, isn’t it?” was her 
reply, as the Doctor’s return ended the visit. 

Cheering as this interview was to Robert, he realized 
that this familiar intercourse could not go on, as it would 
but make the inevitable break harder. 

Their succeeding interviews were anything but satis- 
factory to either. Often they were unpleasantly conscious 
of observation. Sometimes an interested glance from a pair 
of blue eyes would silence Katharine. Once the old Meth- 
odist sidled up and peered into her face with a sudden, 
curious look that startled her ; as Robert spoke sharply to 
him the old man stepped softly back, wrinkhng his face in 
deprecatory embarrassment. 

When they were quite alone; Robert was guarded by a 
gentle but impenetrable reserve. Sensitive to every change 
in the spirit of those she loved, Katharine yielded to this 
impalpable influence, but with pride and affection deeply 
wounded. Once, when she spoke of their future corre- 
spondence, he said, not meeting her eyes, “ We must not 
write to each other ; I want to leave you wholly free.” 

With a sudden flash of spirit she answered, “ And I want 
to be free. But do you think that to be faithless is to be 
free ? Robert Allston, I thought you knew me better ! ” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


CROSS-PURPOSES. 



HE newspapers in Wisconsin and adjoining States 
gave highly sensational accounts of the trag- 
edy, painting the scene in more or less lurid 
lights, according to the political tendencies of 


each editor. 

Every detail of Mr. Irvington’s quiet funeral was gener- 
ously expanded under the manipulation of reporters. The 
fatal encounter served to point the moral to more than one 
Sabbath discourse ; and Robert felt the haunting sense of 
this notorious moral distortion like an actual presence. 

After an indictment for manslaughter was brought 
against Allston, the following letter appeared in a news- 
paper from a sister city, under the heading “A Plea for 
Even Justice : ” — 


“ A crime committed by a popular social light in Milwaukee 
is now agitating the upper circle of that city. It is uncertain 
whether the principal actor in the tragedy will be relegated to 
a felon’s cell, or promoted as a hero encircled with the halo of 
false sentiment. An effort will probably be made to prove 
that the lawyer was ‘ accidentally killed.’ If a revolver had 
been at hand, it would undoubtedly have been used. Should 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


170 

the verdict be affected, or the punishment mitigated, because 
of the chance absence of a deadly weapon, which in no way 
hindered the deadly purpose? 

“In order to commit a crime and wear the palm, one needs 
to belong to the aristocracy ; and a little money is a valuable 
adjunct. Justice may be blind to moral distinctions in infrac- 
tions of the law, but she takes a peep at the social status and 
bank account of the delinquent. If precisely Colonel All- 
ston’s crime had been committed by a coal-heaver, an indict- 
ment for murder would have followed, with chances strong for 
conviction. 

“ Here is a bona-fide case in example. A boy of twenty 
was called from his room by his mother’s cries, and found her 
on the floor, knocked down by the boy’s step-father. This 
brute was kicking the prostrate woman. The step-son killed 
him. No duty so sacred as the defence of the name of a 
high-born lady caused this act ; only an old mother was in 
bodily danger. The State prosecuted the case. The judge 
appointed for the defence a wholly inexperienced lawyer, who 
boldly flashed his virgin steel, but failed to sever the cords of — 
Justice ? The prisoner was convicted, served his tern^, went 
back to his mother, and died from disease contracted in prison. 
The mother’s mourning is rusty, and she does washing to keep 
herself from the poorhouse. I heard her say, ‘ If only poor 
Mickey, with his brave heart in his weakly body, had let the 
old man kick me to death, it’s a thankful heart I ’d have this 
day.’ And here is another verifiable case. A laborer of ex- 
cellent character fell asleep one night in a park. He was 
roughly aroused by a man that he took for a robber. He ' 
struggled in the daze of sudden awakening, and bewildered by 
fear and darkness he chanced to kill the supposed robber. 
The man killed happened to be a policeman. If he had been 
the supposed robber, the case would have been called ‘justifi- 
able homicide ; ’ his being a policeman transformed the act 
into murder, although the intrinsic character of the deed was 
not changed. The man was tried for murder. At the trial 
the pure instinct of self-defence which prompted the deed 
counted for nothing. Forty-five years of good character 


CROSS-FURFOSES. 


17 


counted for nothing. Absence of the moral element of murder 
counted for nothing. The man was sent to prison for life ; a 
kind-hearted, honest fellow, without a criminal tendency in 
his sound and simple nature. The savings of years went for 
lawyer’s fees. His children and his invalid wife were left 
paupers. 

“This is the way justice is served out to the — not un- 
washed, but ungilded. I do not say that I or any other man 
would not have done as Allston did. But I do say that 
what is crime among the rank and file is crime among the 
leaders.” 

Robert read this letter with painful interest. It gave him 
a curious sensation to find himself actually placed for judg- 
ment on a level with common criminals. He had con- 
demned himself, — but on a different plane. When Mr. 
Dempster next came in, Allston’s first question was : “ What 
do you think of that letter in The Annuiiciator I ” 

“ I think that it was written by some crank. But I ’d 
give five hundred dollars if it had n’t been published.” 

“ Why? Because it states the truth? ” 

In a way — yes. The cases cited were genuine.” 
There was some quality in Allston’s nature that always 
seemed to set the lawyer at a disadvantage. “ But for 
heaven’s sake don’t let it influence you ! Besides, the writer 
seems to consider self-defence almost an excuse for killing 
a man. And which is the higher impulse, — self-defence, or 
the defence of womanhood? ” 

“Yes, I see. The boy who defended his mother was 
more excusable than the man who defended himself. But 
the boy was publicly convicted of a crime, under the law. 
The crime was thrust upon him by circumstances, but he 
paid the penalty. I know something of what the boy felt, 
— not all. I believe your mother is living; just for an 
instant fancy yourself in that boy’s place.” 


1/2 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


“ Hush ! ” replied the lawyer sharply ; “ my mother ! 
But don’t you see,” he added eagerly, you are really be- 
ginning to do yourself justice, and to perceive that your 
course was natural, inevitable — ” 

“ I have never said that I wished I had not struck Mr. 
Irvington,” said Robert, in a low, steady tone. But I 
struck twice. A selfish, brutal impulse was back of the 
first, manly impulse. I hated that man before I heard her 
name on his lips. The tinder was all ready for the spark. 
Mr. Dempster,” — Robert’s voice broke into sudden vehe- 
mence, — “ you don’t know how I loathe this whole thing, 
— your trying to defend me, my own wretched attempts to 
defend myself, the intolerable inactivity of this waiting, this 
eternal thinking, thinking, thinking ! I want it ended. I 
want to get away. The prison will at least be a refuge 
where one can hope to be forgotten. If you have a grain 
of friendship for me, you will get this interval over as soon 
as possible.” 

Robert’s mind was too deeply clouded by the past and 
present, too full of remorse and of the thought of Katharine, 
to leave room for any realization of the future. He was 
recklessly, despairingly indifferent to his sentence. 

At the end of ten miserable days he was taken into court 
to answer to the charge of manslaughter. He entered the 
plea of “ guilty ” with no apparent emotion. But when he 
received the sentence, ‘‘ imprisonment for ten years,” his 
destiny seemed suddenly projected in outlines of fire. This 
was the confirmation and seal of his own remorse. He did 
not care to remember that a sentence of ten years actually 
covered a period of but eight years and four months under 
the good-time law of Wisconsin. Two years or twenty 
would have seemed the same to him then. 

“ This end of the matter is a terrible disappointment to 
me,” said Mr. Dempster to Judge Wentworth after Robert’s 


CROSS-PURPOSES. 1 73 

fate was settled. If the case had gone to trial, I confi- 
dent I could have got him acquitted.” 

“ Perhaps so,” conceded the judge ; “ but religion, hisj 
own conscience, and the law pure and simple were against 
him. Common honesty demanded that he should plead 
guilty to the charge, and Allston is not the man to squirm 
into the black hole of falsehood to escape a legal penalty. 
Don’t you think truth should count for something in such a 
case ? And if there had been a trial, with conviction the 
result, the added humiliation of public defeat and condem- 
nation would have burned that man like lye poured into an 
open wound.” 

“ I don’t believe he would have been convicted.” 

“Grover was determined to convict, and he would have 
moved heaven and earth to do it. This is the first impor- 
tant criminal case since he has been State’s Attorney, and 
he meant to make his reputation. The Kennards would 
have been involved, and the whole thing spread all over the 
country. It would have been intolerable to Allston. As it 
is, he has protected her and kept his own dignity.” 

“ You gave too long a sentence.” 

“ Not for the state of mind Allston is in. It will brace 
his self-respect to know that he has met the full conse- 
quences. That is his kind of human nature. With all his 
common-sense he has more innate pride than any man 
I know, and it will both hurt him and help him in this mat- 
ter. But the length of the sentence amounts to nothing. 
Any governor is more ready to pardon a man on a long 
sentence than on a short one. You will get up a petition 
for pardon, and can make your application on the ground 
of over-severity. I ’ll sign your petition.” 

“ Of course a pardon is a sort of reinstatement. But I 
don’t see how you can take this matter so coolly.” Mr. 
Dempster spoke with irritation. 


174 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


I ’m worn out. I have n’t slept two consecutive hours 
since the wretched affair happened — if you call that tak- 
ing it coolly. Have n’t I known Katie Kennard since she 
was a baby? And I don’t ever want to see her again.” 
And as the judge put on his hat to go out, Mr. Dempster 
noticed that he was beginning to look like an old man. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE LAWSUIT ENDED. 



N the gray twilight of that same evening Allston 
sat alone in his cell, his heart sunk in the deep- 
est gloom. The Methodist crank was slowly 
wailing out, — 


“ And just before 
The shining shore 
We may almost discover,’’ — 


and the fresh young tones of the blue-eyed boy joined in 
for a verse, while two or three others took up the refrain 
of the chorus. The singers might have enjoyed it, but to 
Allston it seemed only to deepen the melancholy of the 
hour. 

The young man had become somewhat acquainted with 
his associates during the past two weeks. Harry Bangs, 
the blue-eyed boy, proved rather interesting. 

What are you here for?” Allston had asked him one 

day. 

Stealing oysters. You see me and some of the other 
fellows wanted to have an oyster-supper one night, ’n’ I 
volunteered to get the oysters; but the oysters got me. 
Yes, sir, ninety days in here for them oysters, and I did n’t 
have the pleasure of tasting one of ’em.” 

12 


176 


HIS BROKEN SWORE, 


** Did you ever steal before ? ” 

“ Peanuts, when I could get a chance, and little things 
like that,” the boy replied, with engaging frankness. 

“Were you going to school?” 

“ Yes, I Ve been to school pretty regular.” 

“ Why don’t you send for your books and keep up with 
your classes in here ? ” 

“ Crackey ! I was n’t sent here to learn out of books. 
I was sent here to learn honesty from that old cheating 
card-player over there. When the judge sentenced me he 
said, ‘ I hope you ’ll learn a lesson that you won’t forget, 
and keep out of bad company after this.’ I guess he didn’t 
think much about the company he was sending me into, or 
the kind of lessons they ’d give me. School-books in here ! 
Oh, Jiminy Crickets ! I won’t go back to school neither, 
to have the boys call me ‘jail-bird.’ But I s’pose they 
have to do something with a fellow when they ketch him. 
I bet there won’t be a Milwaukee boy can get ahead of me 
in cheating at cards when I get out of here.” 

The weak-minded Ben was not so communicative. 

Allston one day asked Mr. Dempster if he thought Ben 
a proper subject for the penitentiary. 

“ Well, no, I don’t,” the lawyer admitted ; “ but you see 
it ’s one of the cases that the State makes no provision for. 
The neighbors say the fellow can’t read, that he can’t 
count ten ; but he stole some one’s money, — twenty dol- 
lars or thereabouts, — and that ’s a State’s prison offence. 
Now, there ought to be a place for feeble-minded criminals, 
but there is none provided. When the sheriff takes that 
boy to prison he will speak to the warden about him, and 
they will give him some light work. He will get along ; it 
would be harder for him if he had a little more sense. 
When a prisoner is half a fool, he is likely to have a hard 
time, because he is credited with more sense than he 


THE LA WSUIT ENDED. 


177 


possesses, and his stupidity is likely to be called obstinacy. 
A criniinal is not often a man of average sense. He is usu- 
ally either keen and quick-witted, sharp and foxy, or he is 
weak mentally. Of course many of them are simply bad ; 
but I tell you. Colonel, they are a curious study as a class.” 

But Allston was not thinking of his fellow-prisoners, nor 
was he even conscious of his own isolation as the voices of 
his companions chanted through the “ Shining Shore ; ” nor 
did he notice the transition from hymns to lighter melo- 
dies. It was the sentence that Judge Wentworth had pro- 
nounced that formed the key-stone in the gloomy arch of 
his thoughts. 

He was recalled to the outer world as the sheriff sum- 
moned him to see a visitor. In the deepening dusk 
Robert did not at first recognize the shabby figure of Mr. 
Giddings, and annoyance at the intrusion chilled the greet- 
ing which Mr. Giddings received. 

If you wish to have any communication with me, it can 
be carried on through my lawyer,” Allston announced with 
discouraging stiffness. 

But I wished to see you. I have been very miserable 
myself,” Giddings began nervously. I feel as if I had in 
some way had a hand in this business ; I feel very guilty 
about it.” 

The man was excited, and it was very evident that his 
misery was genuine. 

“ I have come to tell you that I shall withdraw the suit,” 
he continued; “that’s all I can do now. I wish to 
Heaven Mr. Irvington had never told me of the flaw in 
your title,” he added unguardedly. 

Allston compressed his lips ; but as Giddings evidently 
expected him to say something, he exclaimed bitterly : “ It 
has been the devil’s own work throughout. It is small 
consolation at this time that you offer to relinquish all 


78 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


claim on the property. What is the property, or anything 
else in the world, to me now? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! I know, I know,” piteously assented Mr. 
Giddings. 

“ But I should like to ask you a question or two for my 
own satisfaction, now that you are here,” said Allston, 
facing the man squarely, although it was too dark for them 
to see each other’s faces. Don’t you believe that your 
father received the full value of the land from Mr. Howe ? ” 
Yes, I know that,” was the helpless admission. 

And you believe that the property was fairly transferred 
from Mr. Howe to Walter Allston? ” 

“Yes, I believe that.” 

“ And you believe that Walter Allston is dead, and I am 
his son? ” 

“Yes, oh yes ! ” 

“ And yet you claimed that property ! Well, sir ! ” — 
and the pause that followed was eloquent with contempt. 

The weaker nature writhed under this merciless cate- 
chism and the final comment. He saw that Allston’s points 
were very clear ; and yet he felt that he really was not the 
wretch that Allston made him out to be. 

“But you don’t understand me,” he flatteringly pro- 
tested ; “ I never thought of being dishonest in the matter.” 

“You ought to have thought of being honest,” was the 
curt interruption. 

“ I know it,” was meekly conceded, “ I know it ; but I 
did not suppose the law upheld dishonesty. I supposed the 
law was always in the interest of justice ; and when it 
seemed clear that the law was on my side, that satisfied me. 
I was in a dreadful tight pinch just then ; I have n’t been 
making anything for a long time, and I don’t know what I 
am going to do, any way ; ” and a sigh escaped him as he 
realized the weight of his own burdens. “ I always was 


THE LA WSUIT ENDED. 


179 


unlucky. F ve got a wife and three little children, and I ’m 
head over ears in debt, and I did n’t know where to turn ; 
and when I heard of your defective title, it just seemed to 
meet my needs. But I wish we had all gone to the poor- 
house sooner than to have had this happen. I was in the 
wrong, and you ’re the one that ’s got to suffer. I can’t 
see where any kind of justice comes in.” 

During this hesitating, jerky speech, Allston’s contempt 
was insensibly softened into pity. How indeed could this 
broken-down old man, trammelled by debt, weakened by 
discouragement, provide for the wants of the young family ? 
He did seem to be honest in his intentions, and this claim on 
valuable property must inevitably have presented itself as a 
strong temptation. And how little force, either resisting or 
aggressive, the man possessed ! How little was he fitted to 
grapple with life ! He had no doubt lost his own rights many 
a time from sheer lack of ability to defend them. The 
young man’s anger had melted when he spoke again j there 
was little room in his heart for any personal resentment. 

“ And so you are willing to withdraw the suit : if that is 
the case, we may as well shake hands over the matter and 
come to an amicable settlement. There is no question but 
that, morally, the land belongs to me ; however, under the 
courts you have a legal claim. I shall ask you to give me 
a quitclaim deed of the land : in return, an amount equiva- 
lent to a fair rental for the property shall be paid to you 
or your heirs for a period of ten years. I’ll have that 
arranged with my lawyer to-morrow.” 

“ You are too generous to me,” said the older man, with 
an unsteady voice. 

“You forget that if you chose to press the claim, the 
courts might award you more than I am giving. This ar- 
rangement is perfectly satisfactory to me, and I am glad to 
have the matter settled.” 


i8o 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


** There ’s no reason why you should do me a good turn 
after all the trouble I Ve cost you.” 

“Perhaps not; but I thought that we had better au- 
thority than State-laws for settling our scores in that way,” 
replied Robert wearily, willing to be guided by those fa- 
miliar, enduring high-lights amid the destruction of his own 
hopes and ambitions. 

Still Mr. Giddings gloomily shook his head. “ I can’t 
accept your offer ; it is n’t just to you. My wife would n’t 
touch a cent of money from that property, — not if she 
starved. When she found out all about the case, we had an 
awful scene. She said it was downright stealing. She ’s 
got a temper, my wife has, but she ’s got a clear sense of 
honesty. It would take a pretty smart lawyer to fool 
Mattie, I can tell you,” he said, with a flash of marital 
pride. 

Allston smiled faintly, wondering how much Mattie had 
to do with this visit. 

“ Well, you talk the matter over with your wife ; and if 
she does n’t think it is just to me, ask her to let me have 
the luxury of being generous once before I go to prison. 
Now, let us call it settled. Good-night ! ” 

The next day Allston received a note from “ Mattie ; ” 
he opened it and read : — 

Mr. Allston, — My husband told me of your offer last 
evening, and I would not hear of it. But in the night my 
husband was taken sick, — it is his lungs, and the doctor says 
it may turn into lung-fever. I do not know what we shall do. 
I accept your gift, and may God forgive me ! I take it as a 
gift, and not for my husband or for myself, but for the little 
children. It is a hard world, and many a good man like you 
has to suffer through the mischief of a bad man; but I had 
rather been you than Mr. Irvington. 


Mrs. Henry Giddings. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

CONSERVATIVE AND RADICAL. 



RS. KENNARD sat alone in her room mechani- 
cally filling in the intricate pattern of a piece 
of embroidery. Her thoughts were brooding 
gloomily over an indefinable and intangible bar- 
rier which seemed to exist between herself and her daugh- 
ter during this trouble that darkened their home. 

Mrs. Kennard had been at variance with herself since 
the occurrence of the tragedy. With the passing of the 
first shock of the intelligence came a spontaneous feeling 
of admiration for Colonel Allston. He could have done 
nothing less ; as a gentleman he was bound to take in- 
stant satisfaction,” she thought, feeling that a Southerner 
would have drawn a pistol and shot any man under the 
circumstances. 

Clearly, honor demanded this defence of an affianced 
wife ; and she took an early opportunity for a short inter- 
view with the Colonel, during which she spoke with enthus- 
iasm of his fine, chivalrous conduct. Later, as her religious 
feeling became dominant, she went again to see the prisoner, 
and urged upon him the necessity of repentance and of 
seeking divine forgiveness. The more she thought of it, 
the darker appeared the sin ; there could be no doubt that 
the taking of life was a violation of the most sacred law of 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


182 

God and man. And yet, all the time she felt that it would 
have been unpardonable in Allston to have refrained from 
the fatal blow. 

She would greatly have preferred that Katharine should 
remain away from Robert. That seemed to her the deli- 
cate and proper course ; but Katharine’s state of mind had 
made the first interview imperative, and afterwards the 
Doctor had insisted that she should be allowed the sad 
satisfaction of continuing her visits. Neither Katharine 
nor her mother had referred to the future, and Katharine 
seemed averse to speaking of her sorrow. It disappointed 
Mrs. Kennard that Katharine did not weep out her grief 
in her mother’s arms. She longed to caress and comfort 
the poor girl, and to impart to her the spiritual strength 
which she had gained from her own sorrows. 

A fire in the grate was burning brightly, the library, was 
fragrant with freshly gathered hyacinths, and was cheerful 
as Mrs. Kennard could make it ; but here she sdt alone, 
debarred even the relief of expressing her sympathy. 
Katharine had made no allusion to her interview with 
Robert that morning, but had hurried away to her room, 
and had remained there until dinner-time ; and then she 
had eaten nothing, and her feverish attempts at conversa- 
tion were more depressing than silence. 

After dinner Mrs. Kennard had thrown her arm around 
her daughter, and drawn her into the library ; but Kath- 
arine only exclaimed, How close it is here ! ” and in a 
moment she had slipped away from her mother’s embrace 
and left the room. 

Damp and chilly as the day was outside, with the sky 
heavily overcast, Katharine had wrapped herself in her 
favorite Scotch plaid and gone out, and her mother lis- 
tened to her ceaseless step up and down, up and down 
the long piazza. 


CONSERVATIVE AND RADICAL. 183 

The lonely afternoon wore on, and Katharine’s step grew 
slower; but still she did not come in until her father’s 
return, when she followed him into the study and closed 
the door. 

They had been there for some time when Mrs. Kennard 
said to herself : “lam growing morbid. I ’m not going to 
let myself feel left out like this. I shall join those two.” 
She began to roll up her embroidery ; but her movement 
was arrested by the opening of the door and the entrance 
of Katharine. 

“ I have missed you, my darling,” the mother said, look- 
ing up affectionately, and noticing how pale her daughter 
was, and what a look of decision was developing in her face. 

Katharine gave a kiss for answer ; then drawing up a low 
seat, she settled herself down close beside her mother, as she 
had done a thousand times before. She tossed the embroid- 
ery out of the way and imprisoned the disengaged hands in 
hers. This was her feminine mode of preparing for warfare^ 

“ Robert will be going away within a week,” Katharine 
said, advancing directly towards the point at issue ; “ and 
before he goes I wish to become his wife.” 

Had a bombshell exploded at her feet, Mrs. Kennard 
would have been scarcely more startled. “ Katharine t 
that is impossible ; that is not to be thought of ! ” she 
asserted, with all the weight of maternal authority. 

“ I can think of nothing else. It seems to me the one 
thing in the world for me to do. If it had not been for me, 
all this never would have happened. Don’t you see how our 
destinies are bound together ? Robert’s love for me brought 
on the tragedy, and my love for him shall be his support 
through all its consequences. I ’m not going to turn away 
from him. I belong to him forever ; ” and the girl withdrew 
her hands and clasped them tightly together : determination 
was written in every line of her face and attitude. 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


184 

"Hush, Katharine! You are wild to talk in that way. 
Neither your father nor I would listen to such a thing for 
a moment.” 

“ Papa will help me.” 

" You speak very confidently.” 

“ Papa will help me ; he and you do not always see 
things alike.” 

This gratuitous piece of information touched Mrs. Ken- 
nard on a sensitive point. She herself suspected this fact, 
but never admitted it; and her daughter’s discovery was 
most displeasing. 

"You don’t know what you are saying,” was her cold 
reply. " If your father ever gives his consent, it will be 
against his judgment and his conscience, — merely because 
he never has crossed you in anything, and so cannot nerve 
himself now to refuse you. But Robert Allston is made of 
sterner stuff. He is not going to let you throw away your 
future. You are wholly innocent in the matter, ^he sin 
and sorrow touch you very nearly, but you are in no way 
responsible. Your duty now is submission ; as a Christian 
girl you must learn the hard lesson.” 

"Submission is the refuge of weak natures. There’s 
something better than submission where the living are 
concerned. Christians ought to do what they can to make 
things better,” said the girl impetuously. " Endure ! It 
would kill me to endure all this, knowing that I was faith- 
less to Robert, when I was all that was left him, and the 
cause of all his trouble. How long do you think I could 
live and endure that? ” she demanded imperatively. 

Mrs. Kennard was unmoved by Katharine’s excitement. 
The path of duty seemed very clear and straight to her, and 
she was not going to falter in leading her daughter through 
it. She calmly proceeded, — 

" We can endure far more than we think we can. You 


CONSERVATIVE AND RADICAL. 


185 


are young now ; but for all your impetuous rebellion against 
Fate, you will find that you have strength to bear what is 
right” 

“ But it would n’t be right for me to desert Robert. 
How can you think that would be right?” 

“ I ’ll tell you why it would be right. Apart from the 
sacrifice of yourself and the ruin of your future, there is'^ 
another reason that you must recognize. If you should 
become Robert’s wife, you might some time become the 
mother of Robert’s children. You have no right to entail 
upon them the disgrace inseparable from Robert after he 
has been in prison. The sins of the fathers are visited 
upon the children ; I know that. Is it not enough for me 
to have learned that lesson for you? Must you go on to 
prove it by your own bitter experience ? Must you go on 
in your wilful and reckless way, and bring Heaven’s curse 
upon the generations after you? I tell you, Katharine, 
that dead man separates you and Robert for this life. You 
cannot argue away that fact ; you must accept it, and learn 
submission. The last effort of your love for Robert must 
be to help him to give you up.” 

Mrs. Kennard spoke from her deepest conviction. It 
seemed to her now that for all her life she had been pre- 
paring for just this crisis ; and she felt strong to save her 
daughter from this rock of destruction upon which she 
seemed determined to bind herself. 

But to Katharine, with her whole being concentrated in 
Robert and to-day, no possibility seemed more remote 
than a future generation.” She brushed away her moth- 
er’s calm reasons as slighter than cobwebs. The living 
present filled her thought, and crowded out all premonitions 
from the future. 

I shall never help Robert to give me up ; I shall never 
consent to giving him up,” she said in a low tone. 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


1 86 

Mother,” she added gently, with a sweet, wistful look in 
her eyes, ‘‘ I thought that you believed in love. Don’t 
you remember an old song that you used to sing, how 
water once mingled with wine could never be itself again ? 
and how two hearts once united were one forever?” 

“ Don’t bring in sentiment at a time like this.” 

Katharine looked at her mother inquiringly. I don’t 
know that love is sentiment, any more than religion is sen- 
timent ; they are both very important facts in life,” she 
said slowly. “ But it makes no difference ; I am going to 
marry Robert before he goes to prison, if he will consent. 
But it grieves me, mother, that you don’t feel with me as 
papa does.” 

Mrs. Kennard flushed ; she was hurt and angry and 
shocked by the way in which her authority and opinion 
were ignored ; but she kept her self-control and dignity, 
and trusted that Robert’s decision would uphold her. 
When she spoke again it was to ask, — 

“ Will you tell me just what your father said? ” 

“We talked it all over together, and he said that he 
wanted me to feel free to act on my own judgment ; that 
I was a woman, and that my life was my own ; that my 
conscience was as much to be trusted in this matter as any 
one’s conscience ; and that if I were satisfied as to what is 
right, he would stand by me. And he spoke to me about 
the sacredness of human life, and what an awful thing it is 
for one to take another’s life. And he asked me if I re- 
membered what was said about that in the Sermon on the 
Mount. And, mother, have you thought that f^ere the 
man who is angry with his brother without a cause is put 
on the same level, morally, as the man who kills another ? 
Papa said that probably any man under certain circum- 
stances was capable of killing another, that every one is 
capable of anger, and that it is where feeling becomes 


CONSERVATIVE AND RADICAL. 


I8; 


uncontrollable and passes into action that a life is taken or 
an injury done. He said that the law was forced to judge 
men by their acts, but that we who call ourselves Chris- 
tians ought to judge one another by character ; and that 
in all this disgrace and trouble Robert’s character had rung 
true as steel ; that his sincerity, courage, and generosity 
had stood out in clearest relief. He said that only sinc^ 
the trouble came had he appreciated the elevation and 
nobility of Robert’s character.” 

The girl’s voice trembled with mingled emotions as she 
said this ; but her tone lowered as she added with an effort ; 

“ And if I am sure that I am strong enough to bear all that 
our marriage may involve, papa will feel that I am doing 
right. He understands how much it would be to me to 
have a recognized right to care for Robert, and that it 
would, in a way, be a vindication of Robert’s character; 
that it would be letting the world know that it was for my 
sake that he struck Mr. Irvington.” 

‘‘ But the wife of a convict, Katharine ! Have you thought 
of all the disgrace ? ” was her mother’s last appeal. 

“ It will be no disgrace. It can never be anything but 
an honor to me to be Robert Allston’s wife.” And 
Katharine crossed the floor and left the room. 

To think that a girl who moves like a princess and has 
the soul of a saint should make this reckless sacrifice ! 

I cannot bear it,” was the mother’s bitter thought. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


THE HAREBELL CLINGS TO THE ROCK. 



HE following day, when Dr. Kennard and his 
daughter went to the jail, the sheriff permitted 
them to go within the grating. The other 
prisoners were advised to give the Colonel and 
his friends an opportunity for private conversation, and 
accordingly only Allston was visible when Katharine 
came in. 

Robert felt that the hour had come for them both to face 
the reality of final separation. This necessity had grown so 
familiar to him that he could not understand how difficult it 
was going to be for Katharine to accept it. 

The young girl came into that dismal jail like a burst of 
sunshine ; she threw off her veil and wrap, laid aside her 
hat, and at once invested the place with a more home-like 
atmosphere. One chair and a short bench comprised the 
seats in this corridor. 

You shall have the chair, papa ; this bench is large 
enough for Robert and me, and you can look over your 
newspaper for a while. Dear me ! Robert, is n’t this 
luxury, to be sitting beside each other again?” and she 
smiled up to the young man with a look very like hap- 
piness in her eyes. 


THE HAREBELL CLINGS TO THE ROCK. 189 

All the morning she had been nerving herself for this 
meeting, which she anticipated with mingled dread and 
impatience ; but now that she found herself beside her 
lover, free from observation, with no iron bars between 
them, the simple joy of this free communion took posses- 
sion of her. Shutting out all thought alike of past and 
future, she appropriated the one little hour as if it were 
part of heaven and eternity. The stone was rolled away 
from her heart, and her youth, her love, her natural long- 
ing for happiness, awoke into a brief resurrection. Robert, 
too, insensibly yielded to the tender charm of her nearness 
and her gladness. They fell to talking of little personal 
matters, and before she knew it, Katharine was reverting to 
the days before the shadow fell, and reviving the memory 
of those brightest scenes in both their lives. 

“ I am not going to forget any of those beautiful hours 
with you ; I shall treasure them always, through every- 
thing. I don’t consider that the remembrance of happier 
days increases present sorrow, Dante and Tennyson to the 
contrary, notwithstanding. I know it’s a good thing for 
any man to have been once loved by a good woman ; he 
can never be quite the same after that,” Robert said, with 
a tender light from the past reflected in his eyes. “ What 
you were to me, Katie, is all that I have left now, and I 
shall hold on to that.” 

Katharine’s animation faded as she saw the way open for 
her to claim a right to abide by that past and to insert it 
as the foundation of their future. She took Robert’s hand 
in both hers, and with a voice that faltered in the over- 
powering sense of the momentous advance that she was 
making, she said, — 

“ But the most precious of all is the remembrance of that 
afternoon in October, — you remember, dear, when you 
asked me for my hand. And I gave you all you asked ; I 


190 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


gave it to you for ever and ever. Now, dear, I ask you for 
this hand of yours, with this dark mark and all that it 
means.” 

“ All that that mark means,” he repeated slowly, as he 
gently withdrew his hand. ‘‘ No, no, Katharine ; that ter- 
rible meaning is for me alone to know, — not for you, 
not for you, my darling; Heaven is more merciful than 
that.” 

Katharine was growing very grave and resolute now; 
she did not swerve from her purpose, but resumed : Be- 
fore you go away I wish to become your wife. You said 
yesterday that you wanted me to be free. I want to be 
free, — free to love you, to visit you, to be all that I can 
be to you while you are in prison, and for all your life.” 

There was a pause before Allston replied. He could not 
trust himself to look at Katharine as he warded off the 
meaning of her words. It seemed to him kinder to ignore 
than to refuse directly her generous offer. To wound her 
love and pride was more than he could do ; but he felt the 
futility of evasion even when he spoke : — 

It is like you to wish to be all that you can be to me. 
You are infinitely more to me than you can know, and I 
mean to keep you beyond the reach of the curse that rests 
on me. If I could only know that you were going to be 
happy again in some new relation, I could bear anything 
that came to me.” 

“ It lies in your power to give me the only happiness 
possible to me now, — just as I am the only one who can 
win you to new hope and give an object to your future.” 
There was a pathetic ring in her voice, and she dared not 
raise her eyes. 

/‘You are so young, dear; you cannot realize what you 
are asking. No woman can ever bear my name ; I must 
live my life alone. Maybe there’s manliness enough in 


THE HAREBELL CLLNGS TO THE ROCK. 191 


me to amount to something for the sake of my own self- 
respect. I don’t know about that ; but I do know that if I 
cared less for you it would be easier for me to yield to your 
wish. But now, through the very depth and sacredness of 
my feeling for you, I am bound in honor not to think of 
such a thing.” 

Oh, don’t ! You mean 

“ ‘ I could not love thee, dear, so much. 

Loved I not honor more.’ 

I hate that; I wish Lord Lovelace had never said it. 
This ^ honor ’ that you men make so much of is a sort of 
conventional thing, anyway ; you ’ve no right to place it 
above everything. Our love is the best, the purest, the 
highest thing in our lives,” she retorted impetuously. 

Robert waited a moment for her to calm down before he 
answered : “ It was not Lovelace that I was thinking of, it 
was only you. I don’t say that I place honor above love, 
but I cannot entangle your future with mine. Don’t force 
me to tear myself from you ; it is hard enough for us both. 
Heaven knows ! ” he said, with unsteady voice. Let us 
help each other to do what is right. Give me your help 
this once more ; it will be the last time I shall ask it. You 
are a brave girl ; have the courage to take back your free- 
dom, — for my sake, Katie ! ” 

His entreating tones vibrated through Katharine’s heart, 
torturing her beyond endurance. She sprang to her feet 
with fading color and flashing eyes. 

You are ungenerous to make such an appeal ; you are 
cruel beyond anything to make that the test of my courage 
and my love ! I believed that I could rely upon you ; and 
now, when I need you as I have never needed any one in 
my life, you desert me. In such sorrow as I never dreamed 
of, you take from me the one support that could help me. 

13 


192 


ms BROKEN SWORE. 


You have plunged me in this awful darkness to leave me 
alone. Do you call that manly? Do you call that honor- 
able ? You tell me that I am young. Yes, I am young ; 
and so are you. I don’t know all the suffering that may 
come to me in sharing your fate, but neither do you know 
all the strength and the good that may come to us both by 
meeting this together and being faithful to each other. Yes, 
we are young. If we were old, separation would n’t mean 
such an awful stretch of desolate years, and we should n’t 
need each other as we do now. I could live and suffer for 
a thousand years for you ; but without you — without you 
I should want to die to-day ! ” 

These burning words of passionate reproach and ardent 
affection thrilled and bewildered Allston. He turned away, 
— not resolutely, for he was no longer so sure of being in the 
right. He could think of nothing with his eyes on Katha- 
rine’s eloquent face ; he turned away to regain his poise 
before speaking. 

Katharine misinterpreted his movement into a repulse. 
Her excitement died ; her courage and strength failed ; 
and she grasped the grating for support. She felt that 
her love was but a wave uselessly breaking itself against a 
rock. 

“ Papa,” she whispered, brokenly, “ I cannot bear this ; 
take me away.” 

“ Wait a moment, Katie.” Robert’s voice was husky 
with emotion ; he turned to the Doctor : — 

“ She is your child : don’t consider me ; think only of 
her, and tell me what is best. I cannot see the right now. 
Your vision is clearer than mine.” 

He had believed that he was standing on the firm foun- 
dation of duty ; but now this very support seemed crumb- 
ling beneath him. The unconscious pride which had 
hardened his resolution was melting rapidly. A new light 


THE HAREBELL CLINGS TO THE ROCK. 1 93 


was breaking upon him ; but its first rays only dazzled his 
vision and made everything indistinct. 

Dr. Kennard had not come there to influence the de- 
velopment of the hour. He had left Katharine free, and 
the same freedom belonged to Robert. He could only aid 
them in understanding each other. 

The very atmosphere seemed charged with emotional^ 
force. Katharine stood erect now, intent, electrified by 
Robert’s words, with kindling eyes and deepening color. 
As she waited for her father to speak, she felt that this was 
the supreme moment of her life. 

The Doctor answered Robert’s appeal very quietly. 

What is best for one, is best for both,” he said ; “ but 
I think you are not just, Robert, in leaving Katharine no 
freedom of choice. This is a matter for her decision as 
much as for yours : she is a clear-sighted, conscientious 
woman, and she fully realizes the meaning of the step she 
wishes to take. You have set aside altogether Katharine’s 
love for you, which is surely one of the most important 
elements in the case, and an element that has a claim to 
recognition. Now, if woman has one inalienable right 
under Heaven and in the sight of man, it is to stand by the 
man she loves through whatever befalls him. You and I 
may call this self-sacrifice; but to women like Katharine 
it is the very breath of their souls. And to her dying day 
Katharine would be tormented by remorse over having 
been the cause of this tragedy. Robert, you know what 
remorse is : do you wish Katharine to know also ? She 
can no more escape from this sorrow than you can. It has 
enveloped you both : can you bear it better together, or 
each one in loneliness ? I think that Katharine would find 
comfort and happiness in being your wife. Robert does 
not know you as well as I do, does he? ” the Doctor con- 
cluded, looking up at his daughter. 


194 


ms BROKEN SWORD. 


Allston listened as if in a dream : he felt the force of the 
Doctor’s words ; he saw that in his inflexibility towards 
himself he had come near sacrificing Katharine. He re- 
cognized that in their love for each other their destinies 
were already united, and that the shield and protection of 
marriage belonged to Katharine. He had not a thought 
of what the marriage would be to himself; he saw only 
that it was right and best for her. The same instinct to 
protect her that had influenced him before, still held its 
sway ; but he realized that her safety lay in another course. 

Wearied with emotion and suflering, with struggling 
against the natural feeling of man for woman, with striving 
to stem the current of her love as well as his own, — spent 
and worn with conflict as he was, his mind did not receive 
at once the meaning of the change which his newly formed 
resolution would involve for himself. He turned towards 
Katharine : a swift movement, and the young girl had 
crossed over to him ; her arm was around his neck, her 
head resting against his breast, her heart beating against 
his own. 

Robert looked for a moment into her luminous uplifted 
eyes, then kissed her with trembling lips. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


A LOVE-KNOT. 

O days later the sheriff’s wife and her hand- 
maiden, “ Mirandy,” were busily at work in a 
small grated room in the jail set apart for the 
female prisoners. To the credit of the sex, be 
it said that this apartment was frequently unoccupied, and 
chanced to be so at that time. 

‘‘ It seems funny to be fixing this place up for a wed- 
ding, don’t it, Mirandy?” said Mrs. Davis, taking a survey 
with her hands on her hips. 

“ The weddin’ may be funny, but I hain’t found much 
fun in this fixin’, — scrubbin’ the whole place over yistiddy 
till I ’most took the skin off my fingers. That new soap ’s 
awful strong.” 

“ Well, you got it clean, anyway. I wanted to have 
them come over to the rooms to get married; but the 
sheriff said better not, if we could make this place decent. 
You see she ’s going to stay here to-night. The sheriff or 
the deputy ’ll be with them to see that they don’t suicide 
or anything like that. There ’s no telling what these high- 
strung folks ’ll be up to ; and we had to fix this place up, 
any way.” 

“The girl ’s got grit,” sententiously ejaculated Mirandy. 



196 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


‘‘ The girl ’s got grit enough ; but I ’d like to know why 
her father and mother did n’t have grit enough to break off 
the match. Such a sweet-lookin’ young thing as she is ! 
Why, she might have married a dozen husbands,” said Mrs. 
Davis energetically. 

“ She ’d ought to gone to Utaw,” drawled the girl. 

“ You ’ve got things mixed, Mirandy. It works just the 
other way in Utah. A woman there has to be content with 
one twelfth of one husband. Women’s rights ain’t in 
fashion in Utah. But we mustn’t waste time,” said Mrs. 
Davis. “ You run over and get that strip of new rag carpet 
out of the store-room, and fetch along the stand out of the 
parlor; and tell one of the children to fetch the little 
rocker out of my room, and another chair or two.” 

Mirandy returned expeditiously. 

“ Well, you ’ll be beat. Miss Davis,” she announced. ‘‘ If 
that Miss Dory Crissfield hain’t been and gone and left the 
biggest lot of roses you ever seen, and she said they was 
for the weddin’.” 

“ You don’t say so ! We ’ll have to put them in the big 
celery-glass and lay a white towel over the stand. Things 
are going to have a sort of bridal aspect, after all. Harris 
did a good job of whitewashing here. I expect it ’ll come 
off on the Colonel’s coat; but he won’t wear a civilized 
coat much longer, poor fellow.” 

“ They must hate them convict clo’es awful bad,” com- 
mented Mirandy, with a sympathetic sigh. Say, Miss 
Davis, is it true that the bride is goin’ along to the prison 
to-morrow? ” 

“ Yes ; it ’s settled so. The deputy ’s going to take 
the other fellows, and the sheriff’ll go in another car with 
Colonel Allston and his wife and the Doctor. They pay 
all the extra expense. She wants to go, and I guess she ’s 
strong-headed when her mind gets set. The Colonel will 


A LOVE-KNOT. 


197 


have to wear the handcuffs, though ; the sheriff can’t trust 
any man to that extent, — but they ’ll manage it quietly, so ’s 
not to attract notice. The sheriff ’s going to telegraph for 
a private carriage to meet them at the cars.” 

“Law! but ain’t money powerful?” said the girl, re-^ 
fiectively biting her thumb-nail. “Seems to me, though, 
the Doctor can’t have much business tendin’ to sick folks, 
as long as he comes to the jail every day with his girl, and 
now goin’ off to Waupun with her.” 

“ I guess the Doctor leaves a good deal to his partner 
these days. Dr. Kennard nearly killed himself with work 
for years back ; but since he took in Dr. Briggs he ’s let 
up considerable, and he seems to think the heavens and 
all of this daughter. Well, come on now, Mirandy ; I ’ll 
bring over the celery-glass myself, — I don’t dare trust it to 
your heedless hands.” 

Ten minutes later the roses were in position, with a 
Bible, which Mrs. Davis considered suitable to the occa- 
sion, lying beneath them on the white cover of the stand ; 
and the little apartment, immaculate as scrubbing and 
whitewash could make it, and perfumed with the fragrance 
of the flowers, awaited the coming of the bridal party. 
The solitude was not long unbroken. 

“ Why, what a pleasant little place ! ” was Mrs. Kennard’s 
remark as she and Katharine entered, followed by Dr. 
Kennard and Mr. Everett, the rector of St. Mark’s. 

“ Yes, indeed ; the sheriffs wife has evidently done her 
best,” replied the rector. 

Katharine crossed over to the stand and stood beside 
the roses. Her bridal dress was a simple white organdie, 
her only ornament a cluster of half-opened, old-fashioned 
blush-roses. Her face, white as a lily, was lighted and 
transfigured by the radiance of her eyes into a rare spirit- 
uelle beauty. 


198 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Colonel Allston, who came in accompanied by the 
sheriff and Mr. Dempster, paused to shake hands with Mrs. 
Kennard and the rector, and then approached Katharine. 

“ I am uncertain whether this is an angel or a woman 
that I am about to claim. Won’t you vanish away into 
spirit-land if I touch you? ” 

‘‘ Take both my hands and hold them fast, and see if I 
am not your own Katie.” 

“ I did not think you would look so like a bride,” he 
said, with undisguised pleasure ; but you are the very 
loveliest bride one could imagine. Do you know you fairly 
startled me when I came in ; with your shining eyes and 
your white drapery you seemed like a star and a cloud. 
But I am going to materialize you I have a wedding- 
present for you ; ” and opening a package that he had laid 
on the stand, he handed her a velvet case. 

Shimmering against a background of darkest velvet lay 
a necklace of sapphires set in a delicate silver network of 
Genoese workmanship. 

“ They were my mother’s, and it was my father’s wish 
that they should be given to my wife,” Robert said in an 
undertone. 

Do you remember, dear, the foundations of heaven are 
of sapphire ? How beautiful it is that you could give them 
to me to-day ! Mamma, will you come here ? See, these 
belonged to Robert’s mother ; they are mine now.” 

“When I took them from the bank this morning,” said 
Mr. Dempster, “ I carried them around to Bissell’s to be 
cleaned ; and Bissell went into an ecstasy over the rare and 
unique beauty of both design and workmanship.” 

While the others were engaged in admiration of the jew- 
els, Robert handed Katharine the wedding-ring. “Can 
you read the inscription ? ” he asked. 

“ ‘ Mizpah ; ’ but I don’t quite remember the meaning.” 


A LOVE-ICNOT. 1 99 

“ * The Lord watch between me and thee while we are 
absent one from another.’ ” 

It seems just meant for us, does n’t it ? How did you 
happen to think of it? ” 

“ I saw the same word in another wedding-ring, given me 
by a dying soldier to be sent to his home. His wife had 
given him the ring when they were married, before he left 
her to join the army.” 

‘‘ And she must have felt that Mizpah was meant just 
for them.” 

“ Katharine must wear these sapphires,” broke in the 
voice of Mrs. Kennard. 

Taking the jewels from their case, Katharine held them 
up for a moment, their liquid radiance trembling against 
her hand and wrist ; then she passed them to her mother, 
saying, “Will you clasp them around my neck? ” 

When the necklace was fastened, Katharine kissed her 
father and mother, looking for an instant into the depths of 
her mother’s sorrowful eyes ; then she took her place at 
Robert’s side, and Mr. Everett stepped forward. 

During the marriage-service, which was read slowly and 
impressively, Katharine, except when receiving the ring, 
stood absolutely motionless, with a rapt expression, as if she 
were recording her vows in heaven. 

As the rector uttered the closing words, a low, heart- 
broken, irrepressible sob escaped Mrs. Kennard, and she 
buried her face against the breast of her husband. She felt 
as if the grave had closed over her darling. 

Katharine, looking up into the eyes of her husband, read 
there a love beyond all question, but sorrow that was im- 
measurable. She realized that with the love she took the 
sorrow also, as thenceforth a part of her life. Not even 
her husband knew with what entire self-consecration she 
gave and received the first kiss after her marriage ; nor did 


200 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


she read his thought : “ She has entered into my sorrow, 
but not, thank Heaven ! into my sin.” 

Mr. Everett had the tact to accept Mrs. Kennard’s emo- 
tion as a matter of course, remarking : I suppose that a 
marriage would not be a marriage without the mother’s 
tears ; but I think, Mrs. Allston, that you will be able to 
convince your mother that you are still her daughter.” 

And then, as Katharine laid her hand on her mother’s 
arm, saying, “ I ’ve come for my married kiss, mamma,” 
Mrs. Kennard embraced her tenderly, and kissed Robert 
also. 

It was six o’clock in the evening, and the little gathering 
dispersed, leaving Katharine and Robert with the sheriff. 

Mrs. Kennard sent over from her own home a dainty 
supper for two, which was arranged on the little stand and 
served under the shadow of the roses. Robert was re- 
minded of the quaint German custom which allowed a man 
condemned to death to order whatever he pleased for his 
last meal before execution. 

As the twilight deepened, a beautiful lamp was brought in 
lighted, and bearing a card inscribed, “With the love of 
Elsie Vandyne ; ” and a few minutes later Miss Crissfield 
and Mrs. Vandyne came in to offer their congratulations, 
for both were in complete sympathy with the marriage. 

“ Here they are with their lamp and their flowers, and 
Katharine in a rocking-chair, all as cosey as can be, looking 
as if matrimony were an old story ! ” exclaimed Miss Criss- 
field as they entered. 

But when Mrs. Vandyne had taken one good look at 
Katharine, she insisted that no one could fail to recognize 
in her a bride. 

“Where did you get those sapphires?” Dora calmly 
inquired. 

“ They belonged to Robert’s mother.” 


A LOVE-KNOT. 


201 


Family jewels — how patrician ! and they seem to suit 
you too, my dear.” 

And then Katharine made her acknowledgments for the^^ 
remembrances sent in by the ladies. 

“We wanted to do some little thing of the kind, some- 
thing that might be associated with this evening, and would 
not seem intrusive,” said Miss Crissfield. “ I thought of the 
flowers, and ransacked Milwaukee for the best roses to be 
had, — and they are the best ; but Mrs. Vandyne, with her 
German sentiment, had a happier inspiration. Yes, Mrs. 
Vandyne, I ’m going to tell them just what you said, be- 
cause it was so like you. She said, in her reflective way : 

‘ Life is dark around them now ; if only I could give them 
light, — yes, I will give them a lamp. It will be an emblem 
of my desire, and outwardly, at least, it will give light to 
them for this evening.’ Tell us, is it ritualism or Sweden- 
borgianism that you are leaning towards with your em- 
blems and symbols, Mrs. Vandyne?” added Dora, mortally 
afraid of growing sentimental. 

But Mrs. Vandyne had turned to speak to Katharine, 
and Colonel Allston improved the opportunity to say in a 
low tone to Miss Crissfield : “ I want to commend my 
wife especially to you ; you have such an elastic, vigorous 
nature, and yet I know you are tenderly sympathetic. Do 
you think that I did not see through your pretended cheer- 
fulness when you came in*? I saw you bite your lip and 
draw in your breath when the door was opened; but I 
knew you would speak brightly as you did. You can be 
so much to Katharine when her excitement passes off and 
I am away ; it is going to come harder on her than she 
can realize now. And I ’d be glad if you would write to 
me once in a while and tell me about her. I know that a 
letter from you would do me good too, for you are always 
so hopeful.” 


202 


HIS BROKEN SWORE. 


“ Oh. Colonel Allston, how perfectly, perfectly dread- 
ful it all is ! It just breaks my heart to think of it, there ! 
I wish I could tell you how completely you and Katharine 
have my sympathy ; but there are n’t any words that touch 
the matter at all. But I will be good to her, — good as one 
woman can be to another ; only I expect that no one ex- 
cept you will count for much in her life for a while. Is n’t 
she perfectly lovely to-night ? There is n’t one girl in a 
thousand that would n’t look common the moment she put 
on that necklace ; but it only seems to bring out her air of 
distinction.” 

Here Mrs. Vandyne gathered up her white shawl and 
arose. She turned to Colonel Allston : Before I say good- 
bye to you, I want to tell you a little secret of my own, for 
I want you to wish me happiness.” She blushed charm- 
ingly, and hesitated a little in speaking. When I was in 
the hospital,” she continued, “I saw very much of Dr. 
Baxter ; our duties brought us often together, and 1 came 
to know him better than I have ever known any man ex- 
cept my father. I learned that his kindness, his faithful- 
ness, his ability, were always to be relied on ; and I knew 
that his professional standing was high. He was most 
agreeable, because he had seen much of the world, and was 
well educated. The sick men always seemed better when 
he was with them. But I never thought to marry a second 
time, and at first I did not k:now how to answer Dr. 
Baxter when he asked me to be his wife. But since I am 
telling you all this, you can guess how I did answer him ; ” 
and she paused, aware that she had now become the centre 
of interest. 

“But why did n’t you tell me, Elsie?” said Katharine, 
half reproachfully, inwardly wondering how Mr. Voss would 
accept this news. 

“ Because it was only last month that I decided ; and I 


A L0VE-KN07\ 


203 


could not speak to you of my happiness lately, you know. 
But now that your husband is going away, and we have all 
been so friendly together this last year, I wanted to tell 
him before I said good-bye. And now I must say good- 
bye to you. Colonel Allston ; and may Heaven keep you 
and restore you to your wife ! ” 

You are all so kind to me ! And I thank you very much 
for this last proof of your confidence and regard, Mrs. 
Vandyne,” said Allston, trying to smile, and failing miser- 
ably in the attempt. 

“ Good-bye, Robert ! ” said Dora, giving him both her 
hands, and looking into his face until she could not see 
for tears. 




CHAPTER XXXI. 

ON THE HEIGHTS. 

R and Mrs. Kennard came over for a short 
and when they had gone, the door was 
i and barred for the night. The deputy- 
aiiciiii', with a loaf of bread and a pitcher of strong 
coifee, took up his watch inside the room. He sat bolt 
upright, in a stiff wooden chair, facing the prisoner and his 
wife, but as far away as the space would allow. All night 
long he never spoke, — neither did he sleep. 

And so we have been married quietly, one evening in 
June, as you proposed six weeks ago,” said Katharine, 
drawing her chair up beside her husband’s. “ I was never 
locked up in my life before ; but do you know, now that I 
am in here with you, and that door securely bolted, I only 
feel as if all the world was locked out.” 

I have something that same feeling myself, Katie.” 

But I am glad that we did not have to be married by 
^ a justice, — that would have filled mother’s cup of sorrow to 
the brim. Nothing could have so far reconciled her to our 
marriage as the fact that Mr. Everett consented to perform 
the ceremony.” 

“ Mr. Everett came to see me about it yesterday, and I 
think he was uncertain as to what he ought to do. He hardly 



ON THE HEIGHTS, 


205 


liked to marry me, but, on the other hand, he said that 
the Church could not turn away from you in such a crisis 
in your life ; that you were baptized into it in infancy, con- 
firmed in early girlhood ; and he said some very kind 
things about you, Katie, — among others, that you could 
hot have entered a sisterhood with a purer purpose or a 
deeper conviction that it was right than you had in this 
matter, that your father fully sustained you, and that your 
mother would scarcely consider a mere legal ceremony a 
marriage at all, and that you could not be expected to rec- 
ognize the claims of the Church if she refused you her 
protection now. Of course it was a delicate matter for 
him to touch my side of the problem ; and I felt that as 
long as I asked him to countenance the marriage, it was 
due to him to let him know my own feelings in regard to 
what had occurred. I talked to him, Katie, more freely 
than I had supposed I could ever talk to any man, — 
there ’s something in him that inspires confidence ; and 
then I said : ‘ Now, I ask you as a man, not as a minister, 
do you think it right for me to marry Miss Kennard ? ’ 

“ ‘ Yes, I do,’ he answered, after a little pause ; and 
then he added emphatically : ‘ But it is not just in you to 
separate the minister from the man, for no minister is better 
than himself as man ; and what he ought to do as man, he 
need never fear to do as minister.’ 

‘‘ I find so much goodness and sense in people recently, 
— I have n’t met any one in a superficial way, you know ; 
and I suspect the most of us are really swayed by higher 
motives than are evident in our conversation. Now, with 
all my adoration of you, I had not the remotest concep- 
tion of your real elevation of character. I thought that 
you were good, because you could not help being good ; 
but I know now that it is a higher sort of goodness than 
that, — it ’s because you have a clear spiritual perception of 


206 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


the things that are unseen and, we hope, eternal, and you try 
to live up to these unseen heights : that ’s what is meant 
by living by faith, is n’t it, dear ? I can understand how a 
faith like that might make all things possible, might even 
make it possible for me, when I have my liberty again, to 
live a life worth living, even if I had not you ; and now that 
this great trust has been reposed in me, now that I have you 
as an inspiration and a pledge that I have not forfeited all 
the rights of manhood, surely now my future has possibilities 
and a value greater than I thought could ever be given it.” 

See ! ” she said, lifting up his right hand, ^‘the dark 
line is already fading; ” and he did not attempt to with- 
draw his hand as she clasped it in hers. 

He did not know that already her affection had ceased 
to perceive in that mark an evidence of his sin, that it had 
become to her rather the sign of the cruel injury that he had 
given his own existence ; for Katharine realized that the 
blow which caused Mr. Irvington’s death took something far 
dearer than life from Robert Allston. 

“ There is something more that I wish to say to 
you,” her husband resumed. *‘lt seems dreadful to put it 
into words, but I believe that I am a better man than I 
was before this occurred. This awful fall and the suffering 
growing out of it have taught me to know myself, and to 
look at life in a new light ; and I have in some way gath- 
ered strength to face a future that I would sooner have 
killed myself than to have met three months ago, when 
people called me a good man. What is it, dear, what is it 
that works such miracles within us, even in all the bitterness 
of sorrow and remorse? ” 

“You hold the answer in your own heart,” was Katha- 
rine’s low reply. 

It always seemed to them both, afterwards, as if years 
had been condensed into that one night. The precious 


ON THE HEIGHTS. 


207 


moments were not wasted in tears or vain regrets or dark 
forebodings. They reviewed together the whole past month, t 
and Colonel Allston gave his wife an exact statement of his 
business affairs and an account of his interview with Mr. 
Giddings. 

“ He is very ill,” said Katharine. “ Dr. Briggs is attend- 
ing him j but I ’ll get papa to find out what they need, and 
I ’ll ask Elsie Vandyne to go to them.” 

“ What will you do with the place where we hoped to 
have our home? You know the cellar was begun. You 
will not want that left, with its tormenting suggestions of 
what might have been,” said Robert later. 

“ I will not let it torment me. I shall have the cellar 
filled in, and two or three trees planted there. What shall 
they be, Robert? ” 

An oak, of course, and an elm — ” 

And a ^ bonny birch-tree,’ ” interrupted Katharine. 

“ Those are the three that belong together. I could n’t 
endure to have any one build there now; the land will 
only gain in value, and I can leave it for you to attend to, 
can’t I?” 

“ You are already beginning to look beyond, dear, are n’t 
you? ” 

We are both going to make the beyond a part of our 
present. We shall have to take a very broad grasp of life 
now, you know ; and now I want to tell you that I, too, 
have learned something in these dark days.” 

“ Have you ? Then teach it to me.” 

^*1 have learned that there is something higher and 
better than happiness — ” 

‘‘You dear little philosopher, you are always learning 
things and reconciling contradictions. I can’t follow your 
flights ; I should be quite satisfied with happiness ; ” and 
the smile with which he looked down upon the dear head 


14 


208 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


resting against his breast was broken by a sigh. ‘‘Will you 
tell me what you have found that is better? ” 

“ Oh ! I can’t explain ; but I mean that the untroubled 
happiness of — well, for instance, two years ago when I 
came home from New York, and was happy as a girl 
could be : that was ’way down in the valleys of life, com- 
pared to where I am now, even knowing what is before us ; 
and I think the reason is that I have found the place for 
which I was created, — the place in your life. The truth is 
that you, just you, are the whole world to me, — you give 
me a completer existence ; everything has a deeper mean- 
ing ; all thought and feeling are enlarged.” 

Little she knew how precious to her husband was this 
revelation of her heart, and of how essential he was to 
her. 

“ Happiness, — unconscious, unthinking happiness,” — 
she continued, following her thought, “ why, it is, n’t a real 
state of being, it ’s merely a result. Now, I want the right 
state of real existence. This happiness, this sunshine of life, 
may come or go ; it is outside of the strong ties and deeper 
issues. You felt that when you wanted to give me up, 
as I felt it when I wanted to become your wife. You may 
not philosophize, but you feel it all the same, — you felt it 
when you decided to have no trial. This same belief in 
something better than happiness has influenced you all 
through.” 

“ It strikes me as so odd, Katie, how a woman will put 
into words a great many things that a man feels, and perhaps 
acts upon, but does not define or analyze. I see what you 
mean : there is something better than happiness, and we 
will keep our faith in it. But when you said that I was all 
the world to you, I expected you would quote, — 


“ ‘ With him ’t is heaven anywhere ; 
Without my William, hell.’ ” 


ON THE HEIGHTS. 


209 


Oh, no indeed ! that ’s barbaric. There ’s a very gen- 
uine ring in it, but possession at all costs — ” She paused. ^ 

Her husband finished her sentence — Is at the bottom 
of half the divorce-suits, no doubt. That’s the sort of 
wind that reaps the whirlwind. No, Katie, that is n’t at all 
like you,” he continued, drawing her closer; ‘‘but I was 
thinking last night how you are living out the very tender- 
est and sweetest love-lines ever written ; how you had come 
out from your own sheltered life into ‘ the cauld blast ’ with 
me, and have cast over me a mantle far wider and warmer 
than any Scotch plaidie; and I know you will keep a 
glimpse of paradise in the midst of our desert.” 

The town-clock near by struck one. 

“ Oh, Robert, it is to-morrow ! ” and she clung to him, 
trembling. She had shut out the thought of the “ to-morrow,” 
but with stealthy steps it had crept on beside the precious 
moments of their wedding-day ; and now it claimed them, 
and threw over them the black shadow of the prison. 

Katharine closed her eyes to shut out the terrible new 
day ; and then, as she remembered what was before her 
husband, she persuaded him to lie down on the cot-bed in 
the room and try to sleep. 

“ You must take the rest, you will need it ; I shall sit 
beside you and hold your hand, and it will be a comfort to 
me to see you resting,” she insisted. 

And later, when her husband had fallen asleep, the young 
wife thought of the day before them. She did not shrink 
from it now ; she faced it resolutely. As far as it could be 
anticipated, she went through it all, and nerved herself to 
meet it. The clock struck two and three, unheeded. As 
she looked at her husband, sleeping in his vigorous young 
manhood, her heart called upon all the powers of Heaven 
to protect and strengthen him through the long and terrible 
ordeal before him. She too began to feel the strain of the 


210 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


last day and night. In her weariness she leaned her head 
against the back of her chair, her eyes still on her hus- 
band’s face. The shadow of the prison became indistinct. 

Her thought of her husband grew tender as a mother’s 
thought of her boy. Her breath came gently and evenly ; 
the lids drooped over her tired eyes ; the curling fringe of 
her eyelashes lowered until they found a resting-place. The 
recent lines of pain and sorrow yielded to that look of in- 
effable peace which sleep so often brings. 

The deputy-sheriff softly removed his boots and noise- 
lessly extinguished the lamp. His heart had grown tender 
towards the two under his surveillance ; his brain had not 
been idle as he sat so stiffly on guard. He was a Baptist 
in good and regular standing, and very familiar with the 
story of Saint Peter ; he felt better acquainted with the 
impulsive, inconsistent old saint than he had ever become 
with any of the prisoners under his care. And ngw, in the 
stillness of the shadowy gray dawn he felt tempted to act 
the part of Saint Peter’s angel, to open the door and 
awaken the sleepers. Had not the blessed Saint Peter 
done a mean and cowardly thing, — failed his best Friend in 
the hour of need, and sealed his disloyalty by the blackest 
of lies three times repeated? And yet the good Lord 
forgave him, and when his dark hour came, sent an angel 
to liberate him. Colonel Allston had struck an enemy; 
but even the deputy-sheriff felt that he could never have 
denied a friend. 

Then, shocked at his own laxity, he pulled himself up 
morally, and said hastily : “ ^ Get thee behind me, Satan ! ’ 
Of course it ’s wrong to make a comparison when one was a 
saint and the other only a common man ; ” and the temp- 
tation fled. 

Lake Michigan was flooded with the lovely tints of a 
morning in June. The rising sun flashed across the waters 


ON THE HEIGHTS. 


21 1 


with a dazzling glitter. It lighted the spires of the churches 
and the tops of the trees, arousing all the birds to take V 
part in their midsummer chorus. It fell upon the old 
court-house in the square, gilded the grating of the outer 
windows, spanned the corridor within, and sent its rays 
through the bars of an inner room. It touched the ceiling 
and crept down to the stolid figure on guard with face 
stupid from fatigue; it glided over to the sleeping man, 
who looked far more the soldier than the convict, although 
the worn face bore witness to the tragedy in ineffaceable 
lines of sorrow and suffering ; it fell upon the white dress 
of the sleeping bride, crossed the rosy palm of her left 
hand, and lighted the gold brown hair which had escaped 
from its fastenings and uncoiled itself over her shoulder 
and across her blue shawl. 

Her face, turned towards her husband, is still in shadow. 
Her sorrows are forgotten now, for she smiles in her sleep. 
As Robert Allston opened his eyes and saw Katharine, 
he forgot himself and his own doom ; he forgot that he had 
killed Irvington. He existed only in the rapture of his love. 
His heart bounded with the simple joy of possession. 

She was his own. This delicate, lovely, loving girl was 
his own dear wife. God had given her to him ! He 
wanted to remember her as she looked now, so young, so 
free from care, and smiling in her sleep. He took the 
picture into his heart, to be recalled and dwelt upon a 
thousand times in the future separation. In her sleep she 
still closely clasps his right hand ; he scarcely dares 
breathe for fear of arousing her. 

But there comes a faint flutter of the fingers against his 
own; the smile fades; that little tremulous sigh tells of 
returning consciousness ; and then the hazel eyes are un- 
curtained, and are looking into those of her husband. 

They have entered upon their to-morrow. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


A PARTING. 

“ How much, preventing God, how much I owe 
To the defences thou hast round me set ! 
Example, custom, fear, occasion slow, 

These scorned bondsmen were my parapet. 

I dare not peep above this parapet 
To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below, 
The depths of sin to which I had descended. 
Had not these me against myself defended.” 


NATHAN ELLIS, warden of Waupun prison, 
was a tall, spare, dark man, with long neck 
and sloping shoulders. His hair was straight 
and black as an Indian’s ; his eyes, also black, 
were remarkable in their usual expression of tranquillity, 
although capable of flashing sudden keen glances of scru- 
tiny or fiery sparks of anger. The eldest child of a strict 
Calvinist, experimented upon morally and relentlessly, as 
eldest children are likely to be by young and confident 
parents, the self-contained but strong-willed boy developed 
inwardly, after the manner of volcanoes, until of an age to 
throw off parental authority, when paternal theology was 
also discarded, with the suggestive remark : The God 
whom I worship must move within the circle of justice.” 




A PARTING. 


213 


The unsympathetic atmosphere surrounding his child- 
hood had hardened the crust of reticence of one who was 
by nature a solitary. Mrs. Ellis, a timid, amiable woman, 
never felt fairly acquainted with her husband, and some- 
times wondered why she had ever married him. 

Being an earnest man and thoughtful, life and expe- 
rience gradually developed in Mr. Ellis a religious faith 
bordering on Unitarianism, — a religious hope, rather, for 
it lacked vitality to make life seem anything more than an 
experiment. 

When, at the age of forty, he assumed the responsibilities 
of the position of warden in a large penitentiary, he inclined 
towards broad humanitarian theories; and the first fact 
which he was forced to confront was the necessity of deal- 
ing with his prisoners as a class, and not as individuals. 
He could not meet them man to man and do what was 
best for each and all. He was placed there to rule over a 
company of undisciplined guards and a mass of law-defy- 
ing, ignorant humanity who were smarting under a sense of 
powerlessness, of defeat, or of injustice. 

Had his small kingdom been an absolute monarchy, he 
might have efiected radical and beneficial changes ; but he 
was limited by the requirements of the State, of contractors, 
and of prison commissioners. How he wearied of the con- 
stantly reiterated question : “How does the prison pay 
financially? ” And never had he been asked : “ How does 
it pay morally? ” 

Before he had been in the prison a week, Warden Ellis 
overheard an under-officer say : “ A convict has no rights ; ” 
and another remark ; “ I never believe a word that a con- 
vict says.” 

Although his reason revolted against punishment regard- 
less of its effect on character, yet it was necessary that he 
should draw up and enforce a strict code of penalties. 


214 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


While respecting the sacredness of human life, even to 
opposing capital punishment, yet he must sanction the 
custom of firing on a convict if it was the only means of 
preventing his escape, even though that convict might be 
an innocent man in desperation defying the laws that had 
violated justice. During all the years that he held the 
position of warden, his right hand was fighting against his 
left, and free-will was held under by necessity ; never hav- 
ing reached any satisfactory solution of the intricate prob- 
lem of prison-discipline, he rarely expressed views on the 
subject. While he endeavored to be as fair in his judg- 
ment of officers and guards as of prisoners, he never lost 
his spontaneous, chivalrous sympathy with “ the man that 
was down,” although this sympathy was never directly 
expressed. 

The loth of June, 1866, had been an exceptionally trying 
day for the warden. One of the guards had been attacked 
and nearly killed by a prisoner. A slight investigation dis- 
closed the fact that ill-feeling had existed between the two 
men, and that, taking advantage of his power, the guard 
had exasperated the convict beyond endurance. No mar- 
gin for the play of human nature must be left in a prison, 
and the warden himself had ordered the convict to the 
“ Solitary,” and overheard him mutter, “ I don’t care ; I 
had the satisfaction of knocking him down,” — a satisfac- 
tion destined to bleach before the assailant came out of 
the “Solitary.” 

The warden returned to his office irritated by the con- 
sciousness of having been forced by his position to act con- 
trary to his innate sense of fairness, and fully aware that in 
the convict’s place he should probably have done as the 
convict did. 

A man divided against himself is rarely agreeable ; but 
the warden seated himself at his desk with an unmoved 


A FARTING. 


215 


tranquillity of manner, and proceeded to read the letters 
deferred since morning. He frowned slightly over one of 
them, then rang the bell and issued the order, — 

‘‘ When the sheriff from Milwaukee comes with his party, 
have them shown in here. The train is due now.” 

However, the train was late. Half an hour passed before 
the office-door was thrown open and the sheriff entered, im- 
mediately introducing an elderly gentleman. Dr. Kennard, 
of Milwaukee. 

The warden shook hands with the Doctor, then glanced 
beyond to the slender lady with a spirited, pale face, 
standing beside a man whose handcuffs marked him a 
prisoner. 

“ My daughter, Mrs. Allston,” said the Doctor as Kath- 
arine advanced. 

She scanned the warden’s face eagerly, as though invol- 
untarily seeking a friend ; then giving him her hand, she 
uttered her uppermost thought and desire in a tone of 
imperative entreaty, — 

You will be good to my husband ? I must leave him 
with you, but you will be good to him? ” 

The warden was not in the mood to pledge himself to 
anything, nor to yield to any feeling of sympathy. He 
turned from the imploring face, and with the practised eye 
of one accustomed to gauge another at a glance, rapidly 

sized up ” Robert Allston ; then quietly replied : — 

“ Your husband was an army officer, I understand. One 
who has commanded, knows the necessity of obedience ; and 
conforming to that necessity, your husband will have no 
trouble.” 

The warden spoke in an impersonal manner, but there 
was a chilling inflexibility in his words suggesting the iron 
bars ; and the very nerves of Katharine’s heart were laid 
bare to feel the pressure of those bars. 


2I6 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


“ Before I leave Colonel Allston, I wish to learn some- 
thing of the rules of the institution,” she said, with a slight 
but perceptible recoil. “ How often may we write to each 
other? ” 

“ You can write to him as often as you like ; he can write 
to you once a month.” 

“ Our letters will all be read? ” 

Certainly.” 

“ How often shall I be permitted to visit him ? ” 

“Once in three months.” 

“ In case of illness will you let me know? ” 

“ You will be informed if he is seriously ill.” 

“ Are magazines allowed — and photographs ? ” She 
blushed slightly. 

“ Certainly ; we do not cut a man off from outside 
interests.” 

“ I believe that is all. Thank you ; ” and Mrs Allston 
turned to her husband, who, freed now from his handcuffs, 
was waiting to bid her good-bye. 

“ We must leave for our train in five minutes, Kath- 
arine,” said her father, consulting his watch. 

As the three elder men joined in conversation, these 
last moments were given to the husband and wife without 
interruption or direct observation. 

The released hands clasped both of Katharine’s as she 
said : “ I can write to you every day, Robert, — that is better 
than we hoped. I shall not leave you to live wholly inside 
this prison ; you will see, dear. But to think that our 
letters must first be read by some stranger ! That is 
dreadful ! ” 

“You must not think about him any more than you 
think about the pane of glass through which the light 
comes.” 

“ I ’ll try not to. To-morrow I will send you my photo- 


A PAKTING. 


217 


graph, — the one taken in the dress I wore the day we 
were engaged.” 

“ Yes, send me that one ; but, Katie, that is a picture of 
my sweetheart, and I want one of my wife. Send me the 
old one, but have another taken for me.” 

“ I will ; but I am afraid — yes, you shall have the two. 
Your wife is n’t Katharine Kennard. What do you think 
of the warden? ” she continued under her breath. 

“ The warden is all right ; he looks like a just man.” 

“Justice is so cold ! 1 hoped the warden would be like 
papa ; but he seems hard,” she said with a sigh. 

“That may be in consequence of his having a hard 
place to fill. You need not fear to trust me with the prison 
authorities ; I want you to feel that. And remember I am 
not a sensitive girl like you, but a man who was four years 
a soldier. A little hard common-sense will go a long way 
towards helping one through a prison experience ; ” and 
his quiet, sensible courage had a reassuring effect upon her. 

“We must be going,” broke in the voice of the sheriff. 
“ Good-bye, Colonel Allston ; I ’ll see you next time I 
come up.” 

The Doctor also shook hands with Robert, and stepped 
aside to wait for his daughter. 

A few whispered words, a clinging embrace, and Kath- 
arine had left her husband. At the door she paused, 
she turned, she tried to send back a good-bye smile ; but it 
faded, and her face grew white and rigid. In silence she 
crossed the room to where her husband sat ; she took his 
face between her hands and looked into his eyes as if she 
were sending her very soul into his heart to stay with him. 
This was her farewell. Then she gently pressed on his 
forehead a kiss that held a prayer, and without a word she 
turned and left the room. The warden’s tranquil eye had 
missed nothing. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


IN THE DEPTHS. 

“ I am one, my liege, 

Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world 
Have so incensed that 1 am reckless what 
I do to spite the world.” 

earth was still flooded with the golden light 
a June sunset ; swallows were cleaving the 
• in their ecstatic flight, roses were ' shedding 
eir fragrance abroad, and the peaceful beauty 
of a summer evening reigned, extending its divine and 
restful influence over wearied bodies and weary hearts, 
soothing tired children into slumber, and wooing tired 
fathers and mothers into forgetfulness of the day’s cares and 
burdens. 

But this beauty of earth and heaven was not for those 
in prison. Darkness fell early over the cell-house, and 
already in each cell a lighted candle made the shadows 
visible. As Robert Allston in his convict-dress, with his 
head shaven, stepped into the cell assigned him, he per- 
ceived that it held another occupant. The light of the 
candle flashed across a grim, powerful face, seamed with 
lines of passion and character ; the jaw, in its set and de- 
termined expression, suggested a framework of iron ; the 
lips were thin, and the mouth indicated mingled scorn and 



IN THE DEPTHS, 


219 


humor ; the eyes, of a light-blue gray, were at once alert 
and guarded, inquiring and suspicious ; and above these 
eyes, with their slightly arched eyebrows, towered a high, 
well-rounded forehead. The man looked about sixty years 
of age ; but prisoners age rapidly in appearance, in reality 
he was nearer fifty. 

Coldly scrutinizing Allston before speaking, the man said 
in a hoarse half whisper : “ Mebbe you are not used to 
such close quarters ; you look as if you might be a green 
hand at prison life. If it seems orkard at first ; it gets to 
feel more natural after a few years.” 

“ I don’t see how a man can live without more air,” said 
Allston. 

“ Sh-h-h ! you must n’t speak so loud. A man need n’t 
expect to live in here, he just exists ; but I never heard of 
any one having died of suffocation here. Seeing as we 
have to dispense with the ceremony of being introduced, 
what name do you go by ? ” 

“ My name is Allston.” 

‘‘ So you are Colonel Allston ! I know you ; I saw in a 
Milwaukee paper all about your case. For killing your 
man, I congratulate you. If you turn prize-fighter when 
you get out of here, I ’ll bet my head on your success.” 
He bestowed a patronizing smile on the younger man, 
then resumed : “ I am what they call a ‘ murderer ’ too. I 
took a man’s life, — and good reason I had for it ! Under 
the same circumstances I would do just that same thing 
again.” His thin lips closed into a narrow line, and a 
sharp, wolfish glitter of hatred came into his eyes. That 
man’s deviltry doomed him to death, and me to a living 
death. I ’m a ‘ lifer.’ You will have the chance of settling 
another score if you have any more to settle ; but I am a 
fixture ^ till death shall set me free,’ as they sing in chapel. 
Williams is my name, — Richard Williams.” 


220 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Ignoring with an inward shudder the common ground 
of murderous intent thus assumed by his cell-mate, Allston 
glanced around. 

“ How big is this box, any way ? ” he asked. 

“ Seven feet long, seven feet high, four feet wide, two 
feet taken off for beds. I ’m six feet two in my stockings, 
— snug fit for me, whether standing or in bed. But after 
you ’ve been in awhile it seems bigger. I seem to have 
lost the recollection of how space feels.” 

“ I have pitied the poor beasts in cattle-cars without sup- 
posing I should ever come so near their condition,” said 
Allston. 

“ Oh ! there ’s beasts enough in here, for that matter ; 
some of them are dangerous fellows, and others are power- 
ful aggravating. I was penned in with one devil,* and again 
with a fool ; and which was the worst, I never concluded. 
The last one that was in here I made it so hot for that I 
have been left alone for a spell.” 

“ I should think it would be easier for both concerned 
to be civil,” indifferently replied Allston. 

“ So it would ; but in here, if the men have sense, they 
make precious little show of it. They are a hard lot, — 
sneak-thieves is the lowest; for self-respect is what they 
have n’t got. They ’re mean enough to steal their mother’s 
false teeth, if they happen to be set on a gold plate.” 

It was not from any desire to make his cell-mate uneasy, 
but with the view of being entertaining, that Williams re- 
sumed after a pause : “ Once and a while a man kills his 
cell-mate ; and I suppose them Christians that haunt the 
churches think it is because we are such monsters of in- 
iquity. But they would soon learn different if one of them 
was penned in with a man he despised, and so near him 
that he couldn’t turn around without touching him, nor 
look up without seeing him, nor perhaps get to sleep at 


IN THE DEPTHS. 


221 


night for his snoring. It ’s my belief that not a saint out of 
heaven could stand it without getting mad. You don’t 
know yourself what you may do next when once you get 
mad.” 

Observing that his companion was occupied with his own 
thoughts, Williams, who felt himself enacting the role of 
host, changed the subject. 

“ You look kind of down in the mouth, Colonel. One 
most generally feels so the first night. If you want to turn 
in, just make yourself at home in the upper bunk. I feel 
tired myself to-night, and as if I could sleep.” 

Seeking the only refuge left him, — silence and darkness, 

— Allston followed this suggestion, and ten minutes later 
the light was extinguished. 

When the man beneath him had fallen asleep, Allston 
experienced a temporary sense of relief ; but he could not 
escape the echoes of that hoarse, whispering voice which 
claimed him as a fellow-murderer. This was an unim- 
agined and horrible phase of prison life. What loneliness 
could equal the misery of this enforced companionship 
with one who took no pains to conceal his murderous and 
vindictive spirit? 

It was in vain that Robert turned to the thought of 
his wife \ that hoarse whisper banished the tones of her 
voice, and the look of her eyes was intercepted by the 
sharp, savage gleam of the eyes of his cell-mate. He tried 
to live over again those hours spent with Katharine the 
night before ; but they were dim and distant as the happy 
scenes of earthly life to a soul in purgatory. When at 
last sleep came, it was troubled and broken, and without 
rest. 

The next day Allston marched with the gang, joining in 
the lock-step, — that carefully preserved relic of barbarism, 

— and began work in the shoe-shop. 


222 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


All through the morning until the hour of dinner, then 
all through the afternoon, the men worked on like lifeless 
machines. Not an involuntary sound, not the drawing of 
a long breath, the straightening of a bent back, or the ex- 
panding of a contracted chest j no whistle ‘‘whistled itself” 
through the lips of any vigorous, fun-loving young man. 
Youth, individuality, human nature itself, seemed to have 
been eliminated, and some malignant charm cast over 
them. Beside Allston worked a pale, hollow-chested boy, 
with a hacking cough and a weary, listless expression. 
Involuntarily Allston gave him a sympathetic glance, but 
was called to order. No spring of human kindness was 
allowed to flow unchecked. 

When the busy, silent day had passed, and physical 
weariness had quieted Allston’s nerves, he was not so 
averse to listening to his cell- mate as he had been the 
night before, nor did the whisper grate so harshly. He 
pitied the gaunt, grim savage imprisoned for life, as one 
pities a caged tiger, even while knowing how dangerous it 
would be to release him. 

In reply to some general inquiry regarding his history, 
Williams, glad of a listener, launched forth, wrinkling his 
brow as he peered back to his early years, which he dis- 
posed of briefly : — 

“ I never had any mother, father, sister, or brother, nor 
any childhood ; and for forty years never had any friend — 
with two exceptions — who did not prove an enemy. 
Mother died soon after my birth ; father went West, and I 
never seen him that I know of. I was a bound boy ; and 
you know how a bound boy is treated. Williams, the man 
I was bound to, and whose name I took, thought beating 
all the counsel that a boy needed ; and he beat me until 
I lost respect for him and for myself too. His wife was 
kind to me, but she was sickly, and could not teach me as 


IN THE DEPTHS. 


223 

she would of done had her health been good. She died 
before I was twelve years old. 

“ As I grew up, things went worse between Williams and 
me ; and at last we had a big row, and I ran away. That 
turned his spite against me ; and when I came back, sev- 
eral years after, he heard I was in the neighborhood, and 
accused me of being revengeful and treacherous, and tried to 
injure me in all manner of ways. Finally he got me arrested 
for robbery that I never committed ; and though I proved 
an alibi^ I was convicted and sentenced seven years. 

^‘All the time 'I was shut up in prison I planned and 
plotted revenge ; but when I got out in the free air of 
heaven, somehow I felt different. I seemed to want to get 
away from men ; and I got away. I only went to see the 
girl that I had been engaged to once, and kissed her two 
little girls, — their mother was a good woman ; and then I 
went off to the Rocky Mountains and turned hunter and 
trapper. Bears and panthers and redskins were my com- 
panions, and they were not the kind of teachers to acquire 
book-knowledge of; but it was while I was there that I 
picked up what little book-knowledge I am possessed of, 
through some rascally Christian fur-dealers who cheated me 
as far as money went, but I gained something from them. 

What caused me to despise religion ? Liars. The few 
Christians I knew all lied. But I did have one true friend, 
I did know one good woman, — Violetta, my wife, who 
never had a superior. When she heard of my sentence it 
killed her ; she lived only a short time afterwards. I tell 
you. Colonel, the prison came hard on me, — harder than 
it does on most of them. You see for so many years I had 
lived a roaming life, always in the fresh air, even sleeping 
out of doors half the time ; and I loved the trees and the 
mountains more than I ever loved humans. Mountains 
don’t rile you up as men do, they make you feel good 

15 


224 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


and peaceable. I never would harm any one if I could go 
off and be let alone. I only want to be left to myself. 
But many and many ’s the time I have wished I could 
change places with the man I ’d killed, — not just in order 
to give him a taste of this, but for my own sake. When I 
first came here, before I got used to it, I felt that desper- 
ate that day after day I would plan to kill myself ; that 
seemed to be my only comfort, — thinking how I could end 
my life ; and I don’t know why I did n’t do it. I ’ve got 
nothing to live for.” 

The suspicious look in the light eyes gave way to a 
dreamy melancholy, and the hard lines of the face relaxed 
into an expression of unutterable longing. 

“ Perhaps you think I Ve got nothing to die for either,” 
he resumed slowly ; ‘‘ but there you are mistaken. I have 
got something to die for; I have got Violetta. She is 
waiting for me somewhere, and ready to share my fate, 
whatever it may be, in the next world ; I have never lost 
my assurance of that. But I have gave up the idea of 
taking my life. I think it ’s a cowardly act ; and I mean 
to stand what misery ’s before me. And I tell you what. 
Colonel,” leaning over and speaking confidentially, “some 
way a man never quite gives up the hope of getting par- 
doned out of prison ; and I ’d like to see them mountains 
and trees once more, and to die with heaven’s blue sky 
bending over me.” 

Allston was destined to find many surprises in this crude, 
savage, intense, and poetical nature. Its intensity wearied 
him, its pathos touched him. It was unaccountable how 
this waif, reared in brutality and cruelty into hatred of his 
race, had yet developed this vein of tenderness towards 
Violetta, and faith in her eternal constancy and devotion. 
He appeared to have no shadow of remorse for the murder 
which he had committed. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


THE PHOTOGRAPH. 


“ O faint, delicious spring-time violet, 
Thine odor, like a key, 

Turns noiselessly in Memory’s wards.” 



IRED in body, oppressed with the heavy weight 
of prison life so soon felt by every prisoner, the 
following evening Allston found the stifling air 
of his cell almost intolerable ; but all sense of 
discomfort was lost when the guard who distributed the 
mail handed him a letter. Like a white dove out of 
heaven came this letter from Katharine. 

At sight of the familiar handwriting, characteristic of the 
writer in its firmness and delicacy, Allston’s heart gave a 
bound of joy ; the breath of violet released as he unfolded 
the pages seemed to bring him into the very atmosphere of 
her presence. 

The grim old cell-mate looked on curiously, with a pang 
half of envy, half of sympathy. He watched the flush of 
pleasure overspreading the younger man’s face, and the 
light of affection that intensified as he read ; and he knew 
that the prison and its inmates were blotted from remem- 
brance. He knew that a letter like that, coming with its 
loving message to a lonely heart, was precious beyond any- 


226 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


thing else the world could give. Had he not two letters, 
worn and soiled with many readings, blurred with kisses 
from trembling lips, kept sacredly as beyond all price, — 
the two letters written him by the wife so long dead ? 

Williams snuffed the candle with his fingers and moved 
it nearer his companion ; then folded his arms and settled 
back into the shadow. Unregardful of this slight service, 
Allston read the letter through once, eagerly drinking of 
this fountain of affection ; then a second time more slowly, 
lingering over every line. He could almost hear Katharine 
speaking as he read : — 

My Dearest, — Do you know you do not seem so far 
away ? I constantly see your face and hear your voice and 
seem to feel your love surrounding me. How hard it was to 
say “Good-bye!” I thought my heart would break. But 
separation cannot divide us, and I am so thankful, oh ! so 
thankful that I am your wife. You will always remember 
that, dear, won’t you, and let it be a consolation to you ? 

Mr. Dempster called this morning and had a little business 
talk with me, and asked me to tell you that he had arranged 
the matter with Mr. Giddings as you desired, and that Mr. 
Giddings has withdrawn the suit, — perhaps I have not stated 
that correctly; hut you will know what I mean. 

Papa says Mr. Giddings is in a dangerous condition. Elsie 
has been over to see his wife. What an angel she is ! — Elsie, 

I mean. She came to ask after you and me this morning, and 
she was so gentle and lovely ; but she only stayed about five 
minutes. She told me that I must not let myself look back- 
ward now, but must try to realize that each day was bringing 
our reunion nearer. 

I am writing out on the porch in my favorite corner that 
you know so well, and the lake is “ deeply, darkly, beautifully 
blue,” and all alive with motion. It is eleven o’clock in the 
forenoon, and I have on my pink cambric dress. (I will con- 
fess to you that I put it on because I did not want mamma to 
notice how pale I was.) Do you remember the May morning 


THE PHOTOGRAPH. 


227 


when you found me sitting here in this same dress, and then 
you went to our one apple-tree and gathered that great cluster 
of apple-blossoms for me to wear ? Oh, how everything that 
I am and wear and own has become associated with you ! I 
have not yet had courage to open any of the books we have 
read together. What if I had had to give you up ? I should 
have died. 

I can’t tell you how I long to hear from you. If I could 
only have one line it would be such a comfort. For the 
present I am going to write to you every day ; for with all my 
pretended courage there ’s an ache down deep in my heart, — 
such an ache for you in that dreadful prison ! If I could only 
divide your sentence and bear half of it — Dear me ! how 
happy I should be if I could only do that ! 

I am going to write down all about our wedding, and every- 
thing you said to me that evening and night. I think I can 
remember it all now. 

I send you the one photograph. It does not seem to look 
as much like me as it did ; but I knew so little of love or of 
life a year ago. 

How can I say “ good-bye ” ? I want to go on writing all 
day, but I should never come to a time when I was ready for 
the good-bye, any more than I shall ever cease to be 
Your loving wife, 

Katharine. 

The restlessness and nervousness of the writer evi- 
dent. How her husband longed to see her ! yet she 
seemed immeasurably nearer since the letter came. How 
like her it was to seek to counteract her paleness by 
wearing that pink cambric, with its distracting rows of 
embroidered ruffles bordering the skirt ! 

He took up her picture. Yes, it was his own Katie. 
She had not altered as much as she thought. Circum- 
stances and experience had developed, not changed her. 
In the untroubled girlish face he could plainly read the 
character of his wife. 


228 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Allston was startled from his observation by the hoarse 
whisper of Williams, — 

“ Are you going to keep on gazing at that picture all 
night ? Is it your girl you are looking at as though you ’d 
like to eat her? And would you object to letting me take 
a look at her? I call myself a pretty good judge of the 
female countenance.” 

Not their common humanity, not the desolation of this 
other blasted life, came uppermost in Allston’s mind. His 
very tenderness towards Katharine hardened and separated 
him from his cell-mate. 

To give the photograph of his wife in all the sacredness 
of her pure girlhood into the hands of this rough old convict 
seemed sacrilege. He continued looking at the picture as 
though he had not heard the request ; but something in the 
sweet face reproached him, until, feeling that the living face 
would not have turned from the old man, without a word he 
handed him the photograph. 

Williams took it, and holding it carefully by th^ edges, he 
looked down on it half humorously, then with evident inter- 
est ; then he smiled, and his rugged face grew gentle. 

It ain’t common clay that she ’s made of, but some 
kind of double-refined chiny. She ’s a high-stepper, I ’ll 
bet, and likely a little frisky on occasion ; but it ’s a mighty 
sweet and loving eye she ’s got. Is she going to wait for 
you, poor young thing ? ” and he returned the photograph. 

“ That is a picture of my wife.” 

‘‘Your wife? Well, I ’m dumbed ! ” And evidently he 
was, for not another question did he ask that evening. 

Williams had received a shock. He had taken a violent 
fancy to his young cell-mate, whom he already invested 
with heroic qualities, first among which he placed alle- 
giance to woman. From the newspaper accounts of the 
tragedy he inferred that a young lady was the real cause of 


THE PHOTOGRAPH 229 

the trouble ; and now it transpired that Allston was a married 
man all this time. ( 

With the life-long habit of believing evil more readily 
than good, Williams at once removed Allston from his ped- 
estal and consigned him to the regular ranks of “ rascally 
Christians.” But when another evening and another letter 
came, curiosity grew rampant, and Williams ventured to 
ask, — 

‘‘ How long have you been married ? ” 

“ Four days,” was the surprising reply. 

“ Oh, you married her after you was sentenced ! I 
would n’t of done that, I don’t believe. I would of left 
the girl a chance of freedom. I took you for a differ- 
ent species. But human nature ’s a confounded puzzle, 
anyhow.” 

Allston scarcely knew how to parry this thrust. He was 
conscious of a desire to retain the respect of this sincere and 
courageous old sinner with whom his own life was brought 
into such close contact, and he gave Williams the reasons 
which had actuated him. 

The interest and sympathy of the older man were un- 
disguised, and resulted in his final approval of the course 
pursued. Each man instinctively relied upon a sense of 
honor in the other. Honor among murderers is less in- 
consistent than honor among thieves. 


V 




CHAPTER XXXV. 


A SHARP CONTRAST. 


“We looked to hold the sweetness of our love, — 
Yea, if earth failed beneath our feet ; and now 
How is the sweet turned bitter ! ” 


THARINE ALLSTON continued to write to 
her husband daily ; but each lettei* betrayed the 
same restless, consuming desire to be with him. 
Finally it came time for Robert to write in re- 
ply ; and his compact, erect handwriting condensed a long 
letter upon the two pages of foolscap which was the limit 
allowed a prisoner. He referred to his loneliness only in 
telling his wife how cheering and precious her letters were. 
He alluded to the hardships of prison life only in connec- 
tion with those who had no friends, no hopes, no resources 
within themselves ; that in knowing how much worse off 
others were than he, his lot might seem less hard to her by 
contrast. He included a graphic sketch of his cell-mate, 
throwing in only enough shadow to bring out the lights in 
his character. He wished to enlist her sympathy for an- 
other, realizing as he did through her letters how her young 
life was narrowing down to one thought, one sympathy, one 
desire. And then into her yearning heart he poured the 
fullest measure of affection. 



A SHARP CONTRAST. 


231 


That the cheerful courage of the letter acted as an in- 
vigorating tonic upon his wife, was evident in her first 
reply. 

“ Why, I felt as if you had come in and taken me by the 
. hand and lifted me up,” she wrote ; but if he had thought to 
interest her in others, he was mistaken. She wrote page 
after page overflowing with tenderness and with something 
of her natural cheerfulness ; but her husband was her one 
and only thought, until just at the close she added : “ You 
seem so much interested in that Mr. Williams that if you 
like you can give him my regards. I am thankful that you 
have not a worse man with you.” She resorted to every 
device to span the separation, and in her next letter she 
wrote : — 

I Ve been playing for you this evening, dear, — could n’t 
you hear the music? — that tender Schumann Rofnanze that 
lingers and dies away at last into a mere breath of sound. 
I remember the last time I played it for you, you asked me 
how ever I learned to make the piano whisper : and did you 
catch the whisper to-night ? This afternoon I took up “ Great 
Expectations” where we left off reading together; and the 
Dickensy sentences recalled with vividness the tones in which 
I had last heard them. You can get the book out of the library, 
and next Monday evening we can each begin at page 112, 
and read twenty-five pages every evening until we finish it. 
And we will go on reading the same books, and that will help us 
to think the same thoughts. Only five weeks now until I see 
you ! I count the hours and try to realize that each one as it 
passes brings our meeting nearer. 

I wanted you so last evening! I went over to spend a few 
moments with Dora, and while I was there a Miss Morse, 
whom I had never seen, called. She was a slight, pale, au- 
burn-haired girl, with deep-set eyes of the gray that changes 
color with changing emotion. Dora told her of my love of 
music, and asked her to sing for me. She cqnsented with 


232 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


some reluctance, for she seemed very shy ; but when she 
began her first song I was simply spell-bound. It was n’t the 
to7te of her voice so much as its intense dramatic quality. 

“ Napoleitaine, I am dreaming of Thee,” an impassioned 
love-song of separation and longing, rose and soared through 
the room; and it seemed as if I had never realized how I long 
for you until this young girl’s voice expressed the feeling. 

In the perfect hush of the room the girl sang on, song after 
song; the light in her face glowing and deepening as if fed by 
some inner fire. Suddenly she ceased singing, the light faded 
from her face, she spoke a few low words to Dora, bowed to 
me, and went away. Miss Morse is a stranger in town who 
has begun lessons with Dora. Her singing has been with me 
all day. “ Dreaming of Thee,” — oh, what is my life but dream- 
ing of thee ! 

Ever your own 


Katharine. 


Each succeeding letter revealed again the ever-deepening 
longing ; plainly she lived only in anticipation of seeing her 
husband, oblivious to any claim that the preserU; might have 
upon her. 

But the lingering hours dropped steadily into the past, 
and brought at last the day when Katharine was to visit her 
husband. She was in a state of almost uncontrollable ex- 
citement when, with her father, she arrived at the prison 
and was ushered into a small, bare reception-office. Kath- 
arine did not see the other woman, the little German 
woman in shabby mourning, with pale, frightened, tearful 
face, who was waiting to see her son. She did not notice 
the two or three men in convict dress who were within 
range of her vision; they were nothing to her, she was 
waiting to see Robert, — Robert as she had bidden him 
good-bye, her husband, the man of soldierly bearing, with 
an air of command. 

Dr. Kennard had not prepared her ; it had not occurred 


A SHARP CONTRAST. 


233 


to him that she, usually so quick to imagine and adjust, 
had not thought of her husband in his prison suit. But it 
was characteristic of Katharine to have been occupied 
with the thought of her husband’s heart and mind and soul, 
to the exclusion of every other idea. Degradation in any 
Sense had not for a moment associated itself with him in 
her mind. As she sat with flushed cheeks, and eyes spark- 
ling with anticipation, she did not observe the approach of 
one of those men in the black and white clothes until he 
stood close beside her and touched her. She looked up 
startled, surprised, blank ; and then, as in that shaven con- 
vict she recognized her husband, a low cry of horror es- 
caped her, the world turned black, and she fainted. 

It was her father who caught her in his arms. Robert 
stood shocked and irresolute, not daring to touch her, not 
knowing if he had better leave her. While restoratives 
were being applied, the tears of the little German woman 
flowed afresh ; she comprehended the scene with the quick 
sympathy of a woman who had suffered. 

Mr. MacIntyre, an old Scotchman who filled the position 
of usher in the prison, and was versed in its tragic relations 
with the world outside, approached Robert and said in a 
low tone, — 

‘‘Just sit down here until she is herself again. You must 
not leave her under the shock of this first impression. 
Your familiar voice will help her.” 

“ Thank you ! ” replied Robert gratefully. 

In a moment her eyes unclosed, and she asked faintly, 
“ Where is Robert? ” 

“ I am here, Katharine,” he said, approaching her. “ I 
ought to have prepared you for this change ; but I thought 
you would expect it.” 

“ Oh, never mind ! You know how much I have wanted 
to see you,” she replied nervously. “The heat and the 


234 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


journey must have made me faint,” she continued, in her 
instinctive desire to shield him from a knowledge of the 
truth. 

With an effort she raised her eyes to his face, but 
dropped them instantly, compressing her lips ; she dared 
not risk what she feared he might read in her eyes, — a 
sudden unconquerable revulsion of feeling that was almost 
aversion. With swift, incisive force her mother’s words, 

the wife of a convict f had come back to her. 

She nerved herself to speak, warding off any possible in- 
vasion of silence ; but her averted eyes were their own inter- 
preter. Her husband understood her with perfect intuition, 
but took care not to betray this comprehension. 

Knowing how the strain of emotion is often best relieved 
by reference to external affairs, Dr. Kennard came to the 
rescue with the items of business and social news in Mil- 
waukee which might be of interest to his son-in-law. He 
told of the termination of Mr. Giddings’s feeble career; 
how the broken-down man had weathered the acute attack 
of pneumonia only to fall into a rapid decline, which had 
ended in death the day before ; and what character and 
efficiency Mrs. Giddings had displayed through all the 
trying experience. 

When Robert, listening to the Doctor, felt that Kath- 
arine’s eyes were turned towards him he made no effort 
to meet them, but left her unobserved; and she, not- 
ing what was familiar rather than the changes, gradually 
emerged from the shock, recovered self-control, and gained 
courage to call her husband’s attention to herself. She 
encountered his eyes without shrinking, although with a 
reserve in expression that was unnatural. 

But all this had consumed time ; and then, when the 
constraint between the two was beginning to yield a little, 
then Allston received the uncompromising announce- 


A SHARP CONTRAST. 


235 


ment, “ Time *s up ! ” The long-expected half-hour had 
come and gone. As they exchanged their brief and sad 
farewell the two realized what a bitter and cruel disap- 
pointment this visit had been. They had gathered the 
harvest of three months’ waiting, and it proved but a 
handful of thorns. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


A SILENT STORM. 

“ Love is the only key of knowledge, as of art ; 

Nothing is truly ours but what we learn by heart.” 

FHARINE had rallied from the first shock of 
the tragedy and passed through the excitement 
of her marriage and the pang of parting with 
her husband with a strength of er^durance that 
surprised her friends. During the three months’ interval 
of separation her superficial cheerfulness seemed to her 
mother unnatural, and almost unwomanly, as if indicating a 
lack of the ideal devotion and depth of feeling which alone 
could excuse the marriage. 

Unnatural this cheerfulness was, for all this time the 
young wife was bearing an intense strain which must have 
transpired sooner or later ; and the cheerfulness itself was 
but the glow of the fever of longing and impatience that 
was consuming her powers of resistance. 

To see her husband again, to be with him, to grasp for 
but a few moments the bliss which she had been forced to 
resign, — it was this desire into which her whole being had 
concentrated. And it was just at the moment when her 
heart opened wide to receive the fruition of her hopes that 
her union with convict life was thrust into her consciousness 



A SILENT STORM. 237 

and broke at a single blow the overstrained tension of heart 
and nerves. 

She had come to see her husband, and in his place she 
found a convict. As she began to reconcile the two, it was 
only to understand that the supreme object of her love had 
undergone this terrible transformation, had been stripped 
of the dear, familiar, outward presence which represented 
her ideal of man, of lover, and of husband. This lowering 
change, enveloping her also in the close tie which united 
wife to husband, created a blinding sense of outrage. 

The blow which fell upon her when Irvington was killed 
had failed to crush her ; with unwavering firmness she had 
encountered her mother’s opposition ; her love had under- 
mined Robert Allston’s convictions and changed his deter- 
mination : but the decisive battle of her existence, the 
battle with herself and her self-imposed destiny, was still 
before her. 

Encased in an armor of cold gentleness which effectually 
repelled all intrusion, she entered this warfare alone, with 
an aching sense of desolation inconceivable heretofore. 

It was impossible for her to take any one into her confi- 
dence now, to admit to mother or friend that she could 
think of herself only as the wife of a convict, and that she 
found no escape from the despair into which she had fallen. 
She felt herself enslaved, and never lost consciousness of 
the weight of her chains. Mechanically she went through 
the routine of her daily pursuits, and passively she accepted 
her father’s frequent invitations to drive ; but she warded 
off any approach to expressions of sympathy as carefully as 
she veiled her face from the unwelcome sunshine. Her 
piano was opened every morning, but the silence of its 
keys was left unbroken ; the familiar music could only evoke 
the ghost of vanished happiness. She took up a course of 
history, reading aloud to her mother regularly, although 


238 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


her mind failed to retain a single page of what she read ; 
but she felt that something must be done to fill up the 
hours which were all alike dreary and vacant, except the 
hour that brought the trying ordeal of each day, — the hour 
in which she wrote to her husband. 

It would have given her infinite relief had she opened 
her heart unreservedly to Robert ; but with wasted fortitude 
she refrained, and making desperate efforts to write letters 
that seemed natural, she took refuge in “ news,” with the 
half apology : I must not forget that there is a world out- 
side of myself in which you are interested.” 

But the forced letters which caused her such effort were 
more miserable failures than she dreamed. At first they 
seemed empty enough to her husband’s hungry heart ; but 
they gradually grew eloquent with words between the lines, 
the interpretation of which caused him sleepless nights and 
wretched days. 

Inevitably his thoughts had brooded gloomily over the 
ill-fated visit ; and it was not to be wondered at that he 
failed to read the thoughts between the 'lines aright, and 
misinterpreted all the reservations. 

As the monthly writing day drew near, the highly prized 
privilege of breaking silence assumed the form of an almost 
dreaded necessity. It was a difficult and delicate task to 
answer those letters without appearing to recognize either 
too much or too little ; and he was at a loss how to proceed 
to reinstate the old unshadowed confidence. However, an 
unexpected respite occurred. 

On the way to his cell the evening before he was to 
vTite, his foot slipped from one of the steps ; and although 
he avoided a fall by clasping the iron railing, his right wrist 
suffered a violent and painful wrench. Deprived of the 
ability to write, and knowing how the omission of his ex- 
pected letter might alarm Katharine, he was glad to avail 


A SILENT STORM. 


239 


himself of his cell-mate’s offer to act as scribe ; and unwill- i 
ing to dictate anything that he cared to say, he relied upon 
the literary genius of Mr. Williams to meet the exigency. 

Katharine, opening what she supposed was a letter from 
her husband, saw with momentary alarm an unfamiliar hand- 
writing ; but her anxiety was allayed as she read : — 

Miss Allston : 

Friend, — If it is allowble to call you so. Your husband 
permits me the privilidge of a dressing you on his behalf, 
in order to inform you that he acsidently spraned his rist 
last night, otherways he is perfickly well. A man that gets 
letters from his wife onct a day is more likely to keep in 
good helth, becawse the spirits in here effects the helth. 

Your Colonel is a good man, and I saw it the first night he 
come in. Being no hand at letters, as you will of sene, if you 
will ecskuse me I will close with graitful thanks for your Mes- 
sidges to me ; for you don’t know how much good it dose a man 
to be remembered by enny boddy. Messidges to some of us 
are like angles’ visits, — few and far between. 

Your respeckful servent, 

Richard Williams. 

And below, scrawled in what bore but a faint resemblance 
to her husband’s usual writing, Katharine read : — 

Don’t worry, dear; I shall be all right soon. It’s not 
serious.” 

After the sharp disappointment of her visit to her hus- 
band, Katharine had taken refuge in the thought of his 
letters, feeling that they only could form a chain linking the 
happy past with the possible future ; but already one of the 
links had broken, — one out of four. How could that 
black chasm, that break in their lives ever be spanned? 

One by one the fixed stars disappeared in her darkening 
firmament. 

16 


240 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Looking back to the undaunted courage with which she 
stepped out from her happy girlhood into this dreary wil- 
derness, only to find that her courage had failed in the test, 
she lost confidence in herself. She looked back to the 
days when, reading her Emerson, she had worshipped that 
highest form of self-reliance which is indivisible from faith ; 
she recalled her assurance to her husband that she had 
found something better than happiness ; she thought of her 
vows of devotion and endurance the night after her mar- 
riage, of her prayers to Heaven and her strong faith in a 
divine, sustaining Power; and she remembered all those 
things in bitterness of spirit. Self-deception, broken vows, 
unanswered prayers, faith betrayed ! 

Those calm, high, overarching heavens were silent and 
empty ! Faith was but a flame rising upward from a heated 
imagination ; endurance but the high-water mark of emo- 
tion, certain to fall at turn of tide. Was there nothing real 
and permanent? , 

Love, love alone had not yet failed ; but would even love 
survive every test of change ? In ten years what would be 
left of her Robert, the man she had married, since three 
months had wrought such a change ? And what capacity 
for love would be left in her own tortured, heart ? She had 
not conceived that life could be so cruelly wrong. She 
hated herself for the momentary aversion which the sight of 
her husband had created ; that aversion early passed into re- 
sentment towards the world which had inflicted this humili- 
ation. The thought of her husband’s goodness intensified 
this bitter sense of injury. If he were not intrinsically 
good, she felt that it all would not be so hard to bear. 

Her heart vainly questioned, “ When the world had 
such need of men like him, why, oh ! why, must he be shut 
up in prison ? ” 

Irvington himself seemed to her identified with the 


A SILENT STORM. 


241 


malignant force which had overpowered and ruined Robert 
and herself; living, he had striven to injure them, and in 
death he had precipitated upon them this* blasting curse- 
His life ended, his desire to injure was carried on to its 
most cruel and effectual fulfilment at the hands of so-called 
justice. 

There could be no such thing as justice, human or divine. 
Life was all a cruel, cruel chance, without distinction 
between the good and the bad. The noblest character 
counted for nothing, and for one unguarded action was 
hurled below among the most vicious and depraved dregs 
of society. Even she, because of her love for her hus- 
band, must step from the heights upon which her integ- 
rity, purity, and faith had placed her, down into this valley 
of humiliation where convicts are doomed to dwell. But 
men black at heart, unscrupulous, merciless, and brutal, so 
long as they evaded the letter of the law, rested secure 
under its protection, and lived on free, prosperous, enjoy- 
ing all that the world could bestow. Her aching heart 
hardened towards this prosperous, powerful world. 

In the rushing impulse of her affection she had blindly 
wished to share her husband’s fate ; and now she had en- 
tered into it with all the intensity of woman’s imagination. 

Not yet had the opportunity of Katharine’s close relation 
to convict life dawned upon her. In her first natural re- 
sistance to its grasp she failed to recognize its claim upon 
her, or to remember that she too, in all the pride of her 
innocence and integrity, had been a part of this same pros- 
perous free world against which she now turned. 

Convict life is terrible, — terrible as it looked to Katha- 
rine when she saw it through her own heart ; but it is not 
to men like Robert Allston, strong in themselves, that its 
terrors are most dreadful. The innocent heart of the pris- 
oner’s wife who lives in a back alley may rebel and break 


242 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


in silence, no echo of her misery reaches the kindly, indif- 
ferent, ignorant world. 

Like many ahother heroic soul, Katharine Allston faltered 
as she entered her Gethsemane ; learning through the bit- 
terness of her own sorrow and despair how to relieve the 
suffering of others ; gaining through her very faltering, sym- 
pathy for those who have not only faltered, but failed. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


TAKING A RISK. 

“ Oh, hold me not, love me not I Let me retrieve thee ! 
I love thee so, dear, that I only can leave thee 1 ” 


HE minor chords in Katharine’s letters asserted 
themselves with increasing distinctness ; and 
each one of these letters strengthened the reso- 
lution gradually forming in her husband’s mind. 
And then Miss Crissfield wrote : — 



“ I can do nothing for Katharine ; she has isolated herself 
completely, — not that she avoids every one, only the noli me 
tangere atmosphere about her is impenetrable. Mrs. Kennard 
wants to take her East ; but she meets all such proposals with 
a simple ‘ Do not take me away from home ; there ’s nothing 
the matter with me.’ What worries me more than anything 
else is that even when we are alone she does not speak of 
you. That is so unlike her. It seems as if her heart were 
frozen. You must help her ; you have the right and the power 
to break through this ice. If you can only start a flood of 
tears, it will do her good. 

“ Mrs. Kennard is terribly anxious, and the Doctor looks 
troubled, although he said to me yesterday, ‘ She has not had 
time to adjust herself yet ; it was not in the nature of things 
that the state of exaltation in which she went through her 



244 


ms BROKEN SWORD. 


marriage and parting could last ; and a reaction was inevi- 
table,’ — which is the scientific translation of ‘The higher we 
go up upon the mountains, the lower we go down into the 
valleys.’ But neither science nor poetry proves that it is safe 
for Katharine to stay down where she is. Some one must 
help her, and I have great faith in you.” 

Out of all this trouble Robert saw but one possible open- 
ing for Katharine. He dared not think of himself as he 
wrote, early in November : — 

My Dearest, — At last the time has come when I can 
break the silence. I have been most anxious to write you 
before ; but perhaps the delay was best, as it has only made 
more clear the course to be taken. 

Our interview and your conscientiously written letters since 
then have convinced me that our marriage is more than you 
can bear. We were both mistaken in thinking it was best; 
we could not tell how hard it was going to be. You must not 
reproach yourself for what you thought was right, any more 
than you will blame me. You were true to yourself and to 
me ; only it is more than you can bear. 

It is as if you were willing to pass through flames for my 
sake ; you might be able to do it, but only by the complete 
sacrifice of yourself. 

It is far harder for me to see you sacrificed as my wife 
than it will be to give you up. I don’t know how you can be 
released. If you use none of my property, if I have it with- 
held, and we cease to correspond or see each other, I think 
the release can be effected on the technical ground of deser- 
tion. Mr. Dempster will know all about that. 

You must go abroad. If your father and mother cannot 
take you, some other arrangement must be made ; you might 
enter a German Conservatory of Music. If you prefer not to 
have a legal separation, still you must take your freedom, — 
freedom from the constant thought of the prison, — and seek 
change of scene and new interests before it is too late. You 


TAKING A RISK. 


245 

are wearing yourself out in heart and mind, and your health 
too will break if you are not rescued soon. 

The consciousness of this is intolerable to me. 

Do not attempt to answer this letter. I know too well what 
the result would be with your pen under the guidance of your 
heart. Just take from me the gift of your freedom, and let us 
say good-bye now and here ; and may Heaven bless you / 

Robert Allston. 

How he hated the thought of that letter being read by 
an officer, and his romantic marriage and its outcome 
lightly commented upon? The fact that his heart was 
pierced could not save him from the sting of nettles. 
Not until the letter had passed out of his hands did he 
dare to consider what this step involved for himself ; but 
now, when the irrevocable message was sent, this realiza- 
tion overwhelmed him. His loss absorbed every feeling 
except a wild desire to break away from all his trouble, to 
escape from the horrible nightmare of the last six months 
into the natural daylight of existence, to throw off this 
burden of sin and sorrow, and to seize again the love he 
had relinquished, the happiness he had lost. 

As Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday passed, the sense 
of desolation overpowered the feeling of desperation, and 
he gave way to utter despair. He dared not hope for any 
change in Katharine ; the forced and painful intercourse 
by letter was simply intolerable : and yet, to give her up 
was more terrible than he had thought. 

Williams, who was puzzled and deeply concerned over 
the marked alteration in his cell-mate, ventured to express 
himself on Wednesday evening, saying : — 

You are getting too many gray hairs. Colonel, and your 
flesh is falling off like snow in a south wind, and there ’s a 
look in your eyes I don’t like to see. It makes me think 
of the look a stag once give me after I ’d shot it. I ’d of 


246 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


given ten dollars if I could of taken the bullet out of him 
when he give me that look. You ought to see the doctor, 
for it appears as if you must be sick. That little wife of 
your ’n would n’t be glad to hear of your being down with 
the typhus.” 

“ I do feel terribly out of sorts,” said Allston listlessly, tak- 
ing up a newspaper to avoid further personal comment. 

The out-going prison mail was always subject to two or 
three days’ delay, and Allston expected this Wednesday 
evening to receive one more letter from his wife, — the last 
one written before his letter reached her. As the guard 
with the mail approached, Allston’s pulses quickened ; he 
stood beside the door of the cell and extended a hand 
that trembled with eagerness. The guard passed by with- 
out pausing, merely shaking his head as he noticed the 
prisoner’s expectant attitude. 

Allston grew ghastly pale, and turned away like a broken 
man. By a quick inspiration of observant sympathy Wil- 
liams blew out the candle as Allston sank down on the bed 
and buried his face in his folded arms. 

The letter had reached Katharine, then, her husband 
thought; she had accepted her freedom, — the end had 
come ! 

A blinding pain shot through his temples ; his heart 
seemed breaking under the crushing weight that had fallen 
upon it. The guard who delivered the mail passed the 
cell on his return. Williams relighted the candle, and said 
something that sounded miles away to the prostrate man ; 
then a hand was laid on Allston’s shoulder, and a rough 
whisper penetrated his consciousness, — 

“ Come, rouse up ! Here ’s your letter ; the guard got 
’em mixed. You must be sick to knock under like that.” 

Allston took the letter without a word; he was abso- 
lutely speechless in the sudden revulsion of feeling. 


CHAPTER XXXVIIL 


THE KEY-NOTE CHANGES. 


I AN this be my answer?” was Robert’s only 
thought as he unfolded the closely written 
sheets. The first line told that his letter had 
not reached Katharine ; but he eagerly seized 
any respite now from the dreaded hour when he might no 
longer claim her love. With warming heart he read : — 



My own dear Husband, — '•’‘To-morrow will bring me 
your letter ! ” — that is the thought that is singing in my heart 
as 1 turn to you this evening to make a little confession and 
to give you the story of this day. 

If I were not so very sure of your goodness, I might be 
afraid to come to confession ; but I know that you never, never 
fail to take the highest, most generous view of everything. 
It is such a comfort for me to feel that whatever my failures 
or variableness may be, your goodness is always the same. 

Now just fancy for a moment that you are holding both my 
hands. There ! I have fancied it too ; now I can go on. 

He paused for an instant, and seemed to feel the soft, 
magnetic clasp. 

Dear, I have spent this day with Mrs. Irvington. It all 
came about so unexpectedly. I went off to the lake yester- 
day. The day was perfectly dismal; fold on fold of heavy 
gray shrouded the sky, and the lake, dark and sullen, stretched 
out an unbroken waste of desolate waters. I was in the very 


248 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


depths of despair. Of all my black days, this was the blackest; 
and except for you, I believe I should have been tempted to 
end everything then and there. 

I was too miserably, selfishly, desperately wretched to live. 
I hated the world ; but most of all I hated Mr. Irvington. 

And when I turned to go home, there, right before me, 
in her crape-bordered garments, was his mother. I was so 
startled and nervous that I wanted to fly. I felt that she 
could only have come as an accusing spirit. But oh, Robert, I 
never can tell you how lovely she was ! I can’t even remem- 
ber her words ; but they were words of the very sweetest 
sympathy. And she told me that she had long ago wished to 
know me, and that now, since we were enveloped in a common 
sorrow, she thought we ought to know each other ; and she 
said she knew how hard it must be for me, because youth and 
happiness do not know how to meet grief. 

My heart melted under her words ; and it seemed so strange 
that the very thing one would consider a barrier forever should 
have drawn her to me. ’ 

Her beautiful and generous spirit was a light to me. I saw 
and felt that you and I are not the only sufferers. My bitter 
feeling towards her son began to look pitifully narrow and 
wrong. She did not seem to remember that if the love of her 
son had not been given to me, he would be living to-day ; but 
I remembered it. 

I felt so responsible, I longed to make some atonement for 
her loss. I was ready to do anything for her ; and when she 
happened to mention being very busy with charity sewing, I 
asked if I might not help her. And so it came to pass that I 
went to her to-day. 

Her home is very unlike mine. There is a bygone air, a 
sort of pressed-flower effect about everything, except a new 
sewing-machine, which flaunts its young American glitter of 
steel and varnish under the faded old brocaded curtains of a 
west window. The attraction of the room was a quaint cast- 
iron stove with an open grated front, where crooked sticks 
blazed^ socially. 

As I stood warming my fingers, I glanced over the titles 


THE KEY-NOTE CHANGES. 


249 


of the volumes in a tall narrow bookcase near by; and when 
I noticed an English work on Oriental religions, it recalled my 
first meeting and conversation with Mr. Irvington at Dora 
Crissfield’s ; and I could see how, from that very afternoon, his 
destiny and mine were turned. On Mrs. Irvington’s writing- 
desk there was a photograph of her son, in which his best 
expression was taken, — an expression that I had forgotten. 

It seemed like a dream to be in his mother’s house, and 
to be reminded of him in ways that did not shock or hurt me. 
It is best, dear, is n’t it? It is as you would like it to be? 

After dinner, as we sewed together, Mrs. Irvington told 
me the pitiful story of the deserted wife for whom we were 
working, and who had contrived to conceal her destitution 
until the new baby came. I made two cunning little baby 
dresses ; they looked so like a baby when they were finished, — 
though they were not the dainty white things trimmed with 
lace that I supposed all infants wore. I used the sewing- 
machine, — a novelty to me ; and it was very fascinating to see 
the long seams develop so rapidly under my guidance. The 
afternoon seemed very short, and at its close Mrs. Irvington 
asked me to go with her to take Mrs. Jessup the things we 
had made. 

I shall never forget the picture of bare and wretched pov- 
erty that I encountered. The little room was chilly and 
smoky, and the green wood in the broken stove simmered 
forlornly. There was not a chair in the room. On an in- 
verted box beside the stove sat a half-dressed, shivering wo- 
man, with a moving bundle in her arms. A perfect wealth of 
tangled auburn hair fell about her shoulders, and she looked 
up at me out of a pair of limpid violet eyes. I never sup-" 
posed poor people had such lovely eyes. 

Two little children sat on the floor; the eldest, a girl of 
six, had a tear-stained, doleful face, and conspicuously held up 
a bandaged arm, which she had burned in moving the tea- 
kettle. 

I was amazed to see how Mrs. Irvington knew just what 
to do. She straightened out the disordered bed and tucked 
mother and baby snugly into it; she found a hatchet and split 


250 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


the dry box into kindlings, saying, by way of justification, “ I ’ll 
send you a chair to-morrow.” In ten minutes the fire was 
burning cheerily, the tea-kettle singing, the tea steeping, the 
lamp lighted, and the litter on the floor all swept away. 

Not knowing how to be of practical assistance, I picked 
the little burned girl off the floor and seated her on the table ; 
then I told her a story and comforted her with promises for 
to-morrow; and then Mrs. Jessup and I had a little talk. 

How do you think it made me feel, Robert, when she said 
this ? “ Yes, it was hard ; a very light breakfast, no dinner, 
a very light supper, day after day. More than once me and 
the children just cried, we were so hungry ; and then, too, I 
was so lonesome without^////, and so worried for feaV he might 
be tempted to steal. But I kept on hoping something would 
happen better than the poorhouse ; and you see Mrs. Irving- 
ton happened. And when I get well and get work, you must 
call again and see v/hat a tidy house I can keep.” 

How do you think this made me feel, Robert Allston, — 
I standing there in my horribly expensive India shawl that 
mother gave me last week ? 

But the baby was the funniest thing, — just the least little 
sample of humanity, with a velvet skin and soft red hair like 
a wig ! 

When I bade Mrs. Irvington good-by, I told her that I 
should like to do something more for her. She took me at my 
word, and asked me to leave my veil with her. 

I knew in a moment what she meant, and I came near 
refusing ; but I handed her the veil, and walked home with 
my face uncovered, — for the first time, dear; but I knew in 
my heart it was best. 

What a long, long letter ! and I feel as if I had left vol- 
Mines unsaid; for you know all that is in my heart belongs 
to you. 

Ever your own Katharine. 

Robert’s letter had received its answer. Clearly his wife 
was his own still ; and better, surer help had come to her 
than any foreign Conservatory of Music could give. 


THE KEY-NOTE CHANGES. 


251 


And it was the mother of the man he had killed who 
had given him back his Katharine. That knowledge was 
terrible ; the coals of fire had fallen indeed ! 

But a sweet consolation came with the thought that 
Katharine, out of the fulness of her own heart, longed to 
make all possible reparation to the mother he had wronged. 
She could respond to Mrs. Irvington’s beautiful generosity 
as he was powerless to do : this seemed to make his wife 
more one with him. How weary he was with the strain of 
the last weeks ! And now Katharine had come back to him 
in this way. He could not sleep that night for the visions 
of the two blessed women meeting in their sympathy for 
each other to relieve the sorrows of another suffering 
woman. 

Neither Robert Allston nor his wife ever could know 
that during the evening of the day in which Katharine had 
been with her, Mrs. Irvington was thinking : That inno- 
cent girl did not dream how hard it was to me, — all the 
harder because she is so lovely. How could my poor boy 
have helped loving her? O Joe ! Joe ! why was it that 
every one whose life touched yours suffered in conse- 
quence? I wonder if that consciousness torments you 
now as it does me ; if you see her bearing this sorrow, and 
if that is your punishment ? If I could only lighten it for 
her and for you ! It was for your sake that I asked her 
here. I think you would like to know that we can be 
friends, — the mother who loved you, and the woman you 
loved. 

“ If I could only forget that it was you who brought 
about the lawsuit ; if you had not told me that you wanted 
to injure him ! There is so much that I want to forget. 
We can forgive our dead ; but how can we bear the mem- 
ory of the pain they caused in life ? ” and her work dropped 
from her hands ; she could not see for tears. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


THE ANSWER TO A FAREWELL. 

“ There is no hope but this, — to see, 

Through tears that gather fast and fall. 

Too great to perish Love must be. 

And Love shall save us all.” 

OTWITHSTANDING his great relief after the 
one letter, Allston was nervously impatient to 
hear again from his wife. Had he really 
doubted her love and courage ; and would she 
be deeply hurt, and he unable to send one line of com- 
fort? How the hours dragged all through that endless 
day ! And when evening came, and he held another letter 
in his hand, he dreaded to break the seal. 

But he had nothing to dread, for this was what Katha- 
rine had written : — 

My own Dearest, — I carried your letter away to my 
room to enjoy it all alone. 

I read it over and over ; but whether more kisses or more 
tears covered it, I never can tell. It is all blurred now, as it 
ought to be. 

Oh, Robert, how can I ever take away the pain I have 
given you ! And you thought I could live without you ! It 
seems now as if I never could live until we meet again and I 
can blot from your remembrance our last meeting. 



THE ANSWER TO A FAREWELL. 


253 


I was wrong in trying to be courageous alone when I most 
needed you. If I had only been frank with you and told you 
how terribly unhappy I was, you could not have misunder- 
stood me ; but I wanted to save you from pain, dear, for / 
loved you so ! 

Had your letter come two days earlier, when I was most 
wretched, I might only have felt that I had disappointed you, 
and then I should have been ready to fly to Europe or any- 
where in my despair, and there would have been no end to 
the misery. But you know from my last letter that the clouds 
had begun to break above me ; I am so glad that I had sent 
that letter before yours came. 

There is to be perfect confidence between us, and I will 
confess that, in a way which I hardly understand now, my 
meeting with you at the prison gave me a terrible shock. I 
know that it betrayed great weakness, but it was a fact. 

And just here I am going to have the satisfaction of saying 
that the prison dress is a most unnecessary cruelty, without 
the shadow of an excuse. No one need say that it does not 
affect the nerves and spirits of the men who wear it; it is an 
outrage upon our humanity. A plain decent uniform of any 
dark color not worn by men outside would serve the purpose 
of identification in case of escape, and could have no demora- 
lizing influence. A soldier’s uniform is recognizable at a 
glance. 

Does the prison aim to make men of its inmates, or does 
it wish to rob them of manhood t It is n’t going to rob you of 
manhood, for nothing can do that ; but does not even dear Mr. 
Everett feel a sort of moral support in his ministerial dress ? 

And now, dear, shall I tell you about my morning ? I have 
been using some of your money for you to-day ; it is the first 
time I have drawn on our bank-account. I felt something like 
the good woman in the Sunday-school books when I bought 
wood and flannel and tea and beef, all sorts of practical things, 
for Mrs. Jessup. I knew that you would want them to be 
made quite comfortable until the poor woman could do some- 
thing for herself. Oh, how forgetful of others, how wrong I 
have been ! 


254 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Of course they were behind in their rent, and their land- 
lord threatened to have them ejected ; consequently I inter- 
viewed their landlord: who do you suppose? That Mr. 
Bayard Elamsford who made so much money in cotton 
speculations ! 

I paid up the three months’ rent back, and one in advance ; 
and then I said, “Is that all ? ” and he answered : “Not quite 
all; there’s the receipt.” I was very much embarrassed, and 
began to blush as I said ; “ I do not know how to make out a 
receipt.” He looked amused, and had the audacity to reply : 
“No charming woman needs to be versed in business. It is 
I who make out the receipt.” 

I was furious over my blunder, but made no comment ; 
only I meekly requested that he should have the broken panes 
replaced in the window of his wretched tenement-house. 

And now do you think that I went around to see Mrs. 
Jessup ? , Not I; I had not the courage. I thought that after 
all she has suffered, within three blocks of our luxurious home, 
if she should happen to show the grace of gratitude for the 
bare necessaries I had sent her, I should feel too deeply hu- 
miliated. Do you think I shall ever become reconciled to my 
India shawl ? 

Dear, I have not answered your letter, — I cannot answer 
it ! To think what you must have suffered before writing it, 
makes me feel that I can never forgive myself. Words are 
so weak ! Listen, dear, and see if you cannot hear what my 
heart says to yours ? 

For time and for eternity, 

Your own 

Katharine. 

After reading this letter, nothing in his own fate seemed 
hard to Allston for the moment, except that he could not 
reach out and clasp his darling to his heart. A new faith 
in God and in life was born in his soul. He felt that the 
great mysterious spiritual laws under which Katharine was 
guarded were more powerful and unerring than his love. 


THE ANSWER TO A FAREWELL. 


255 


“Seems to me you’re getting rather unsociable lately, 
Colonel,” broke in the unwelcome voice of Williams when 
a long silence had followed the reading of Katharine’s 
letter. 

Allston aroused himself to the present, the prison, and 
his cell-mate with an effort, — he had quite forgotten them ; 
but now he noticed that Williams looked unusually bored. 

“ You seem kind of absent ; everything all right with 
your folks ? ” 

“Yes, everything is more than all right. I’ve had two 
splendid letters from my wife this week. They have given 
me a good deal to think of, and I must have been a dull 
companion.” 

Allston could not get his mind off the letters ; and in 
order to enliven the old man and think of Katharine at the 
same time, he introduced the Jessups to his cell-mate, con- 
veying to him the glimpse that Katharine had given of the 
poverty-stricken interior, and telling of the interest she had 
taken in its inmates. 

Williams was greatly amused by Mrs. Allston’s blunder 
about the receipt ; and after chuckling over it in silence for 
a few minutes, he remarked : — 

“ It is curious how a right smart woman don’t seem to 
have natural sense when it comes to business. Their in- 
nocent foolishness does beat all. Violetta had no head 
for business ; but when it came to doing things, she was 
smart as a whip.” And then, as the name of Violetta was 
sure to stir some reminiscence, he rambled on : “ Violetta 
had an eye for everything pretty. I remember one summer 
we camped out on an island in the Mississippi, in a board 
shanty that some tourists had erected the year before. 
Those was about the happiest weeks of our life, — hunt- 
ing, fishing, and reading together. 

“ It was my delight to teach Vi to shoot squirrels and 

17 


256 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


pheasants, and practise with revolvers. I made a famous 
shot of Vi before we went home. I recollect one after- 
noon we went on a ramble over some hills, found some 
blackberries, and Violetta marked out a hundred spots of 
moss to carry home with her. She had the fancy plumes 
and colors of more than a dozen birds, intending to orna- 
ment her hats with them. 

“ One day I shot an eagle, and under the wings Violetta 
found a lot of white feathers which she curled, and they 
were equal to ostrich-feathers. I used to tell her that we 
might go into the plume and feather business, for she 
could of done as neat a job dressing feathers as if she had 
of been brought up to the trade. But if ever she had tried 
to sell them she would of got cheated by her customers, for 
anybody could puzzle her at figures.” 

Williams always loved to linger around Violetta, — the 
one oasis in the desert of his life ; and in all his reminis- 
cences of his wife there was a simple pastoral element that 
seemed remote from the rest of his life. When he spoke 
of her — perhaps unconsciously yielding to some influence 
from literature — he used better forms of speech than when 
he spoke of other matters. The poetry of his existence 
was centred in her ; and Allston grew to think of Violetta 
almost as some legendary Minnehaha. With his heart 
cheered by the thought of his own living, loving Katharine, 
that blossom of modem civilization, Allston followed, 
through her husband’s persistent retrospection, many an 
adventure of the child of Nature, Violetta, who came 
bringing visions of wild flowers and forest sounds and 
scents. 

It was not only two lonely men who peopled that 
prison-cell. 


CHAPTER XL. 


A GLIMPSE OF HAPPINESS. 



AS it the brilliant winter day that reflected its 
radiance in Katharine Allston’s face as she 
stood beside a grated window within the prison 
awaiting her husband one afternoon in the fol- 
lowing December? 

Since the more perfect understanding recently developed 
between them, they had indeed been very near in spirit ; 
and now the sound of Robert’s voice thrilled Katharine 
with all the old blissful ecstasy, and when the sudden glad 
light in her eyes was flashed into his, Robert felt as if the 
heavens had opened. 

“ I am so happy just to be with you again that I have n’t 
a word to say,” whispered Katharine as she withdrew from 
her husband’s embrace with a tide of warm color sweeping 
over her face. 

But I have something to say to you,” was the low re- 
ply. “ I want to tell you that I am ashamed of the letter I 
wrote you ; it seems such a piece of mock heroism to me 
now. How did I ever dream that I could give you up ? ” 
and he looked at her with such ardent intensity that she 
suddenly hid her face against the folds of the despised 
convict suit. 


258 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Her eyelashes glistened when she raised her head a 
moment later, and her voice was not quite steady as she 
said : — 

‘‘ Of course the letter was a mistake, — we both know that ; 
let us forget it. We did not think we could ever be willing 
to forget anything that happened between us, did we, dear ? 
But I Ve been thinking, on the way here to-day, that con- 
sidering all the history of the last eight months — I Ve 
been thinking that on the whole weVe done very well. 
Only look back to what we were a year ago, — young, ig- 
norant, and happy, supposing our world was all love and 
sunshine ; and we have been through this awful experience 
of sin and sorrow ; we have been in danger of losing each 
other ; we have married and have been parted ; and we 
have felt this horrible prison side of life in the very depths 
of our being. Was it so strange that in the crumbling of 
so much that we had believed permanent, — \vas it strange 
that even the outline of our love seemed for a little time 
distorted ? How could we a\ once adjust ourselves to our 
changed world ? Robert, think of it ! after all this, here 
we stand to-day, holding each other’s hands, one in heart 
and in soul and in faith in God, — one in the determi- 
nation not to shirk the claims of life, but to meet them, 
you within, and I outside the prison. 

This sounds dreadfully like an oration, dear, does n’t 
it? ” she suddenly broke off, lifting her face to his in a way 
that was irresistibly tempting. 

Katie, my darling, you make me more in love with you 
than ever. Don’t look at me in that distracting fashion, for 
I want to talk to you ; I have a thousand things to say.” 
They settled into a confidential talk in the lowest under- 
tones, a.nd bolts and bars were forgotten for the remainder 
of the interview. 

When the farewell came, Katharine whispered to her 


A GLIMPSE OF HAPPINESS. 259 

husband : “You have given me so much in this half hour ! 
I feel as if this meeting would last until we meet again.” 

“ Katharine,” said her father as they were leaving the 
prison, I have an invitation for you and your mother to 
spend a Sunday here when it is time for you to come again. 
The warden says that as his guest you can have a long 
visit with Robert on the Sunday afternoon.” 

“ I want to see the warden : where is he ? ” demanded 
Katharine, turning from the door. 

“He is right here in his office,” said the Doctor; and 
as a voice replied, “ Come ! ” in answer to Dr. Kennard’s 
knock, Katharine entered. She advanced directly to Mr. 
Ellis and took his hand, saying, — 

I wish to thank you for your very great kindness in 
asking me to spend a Sunday here : there ’s nothing in all 
the world that could be more to me now; ” and releasing 
the hand, she bowed and withdrew ; while Mr. Ellis’s tran- 
quil smile accorded with his sense of personal satisfaction 
in her gratitude. Her ardent, self-reliant nature stirred his 
admiration more than his sympathy. 

Katharine had a way of drawing upon future pleasures 
and making them a part of her present. Between the 
memory of “that beautiful visit,” as she called it in her 
thoughts, and the anticipation of the coming Sunday, her 
days were brightened ; but as the anticipated Sunday ap- 
proached, the prospect changed. Mrs. Kennard was taken 
ill with an attack of inflammatory rheumatism, and Katharine 
was so indispensable in the sick-room that she hesitated to 
leave her mother, even for the usual half-hour visit with 
■her husband. But Mrs. Kennard, who was not the woman 
to forget the needs and the claims of affection, kept trace 
of the days of the month, and disposed of Katharine’s 
objections to leaving her with the single appeal : “ Don’t 
add to the pam which I am obliged to suffer, the distress 


26 o 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


which it would give me to deprive you and Robert of a 
single meeting.” 

And Katharine accepted the one day’s release, and re- 
turned to her ministrations in the sick-room with a quiet 
light of hope and courage in her eyes which more than 
rewarded her mother for the short absence. 

The line of Katharine’s anticipation was now thrown for- 
ward another three months, and her Sunday in March gave 
place to a Sunday in June. But she was too closely oc- 
cupied with her mother’s illness and convalescence in the 
intermediate weeks to give any consideration to her own 
wants or plans. 

In the care and devotion which Katharine lavished upon 
her mother, insensibly to both the slight estrangements 
which had for months existed between them vanished com- 
pletely. A novice at housekeeping, anything like domestic 
care was beyond the line of Katharine’s experience. With 
the fatality which seems to^ attend the first invasion of 
trouble, a train of minor calamities followed Mrs. Kennard’s 
illness, — calamities minor in relation to Katharine ; but to 
the cook, who broke her arm in an irregular descent down 
the cellar-stairs, and to the perfectly trained waitress, whose 
mother was attacked with paralysis, Mrs. Kennard's illness 
appeared of secondary importance. 

Katharine’s latent ability in household management was 
vigorously aroused to action in this exigency, and her first 
venture into the arena was by no means across a path of 
roses. That enemy to womankind which lurks in every 
singing tea-kettle attacked her slender white wrist and left 
a crimson badge of tyranny as Katharine made her mother’s 
tea. And Mrs. Allston found herself in an embarrassing 
position when attempting to teach a fresh Hibernian the ar- 
tistic touches in cookery of which she herself had but a 
theoretical knowledge. 


A GLIMPSE OF HAPPINESS. 


261 

Her experiences were detailed to her husband ; for in 
her letters to him she found refuge from weariness, and in 
the remembrance of his life her own anxieties and annoy- 
ances dwindled into mere material upon which to found let- 
ters that never failed of cheerfulness. She wrote Robert : 

“ I am afraid that we must abandon our course of reading 
in the same line for the present, unless you care to devote your 
evenings to cook-books, which form my one engrossing study. 

“ Mamma’s illness may prove a lucky thing for you, however, 
for I ’ve actually learned how to teach another persoti to make 
delicious rolls and omelettes and coffee. 

“ And as to the delicacies that I prepare for mamma, you 
ought to see the fond maternal pride in her eyes when she as- 
sures herself that their flavor verifies the alluring appearance ! 
My culinary successes appeal to a genuine sentiment in 
mothers heart, as they are tangible proofs of my Benton de- 
scent. I have settled one thing in my future career, however : 
if I am ever thrown on my own resources, I shall not ope^i a 
boarding-house. 

“ You can’t know what a relief it is to me to snatch a few 
moments with you in this way. Mamma is asleep, and the 
house down-stairs, outside the kitchen, is deserted ; but don’t 
fancy that it looks as if the mistress were ill, — I conscien- 
tiously keep everything as near mamma’s standard as possible. 

“ To-day there ’s a wealth of lilacs in the library, — those 
beautiful white lilacs that I remember you admire ; and in mam- 
ma’s room, where I am writing, there is the punch-bowl filled 
with lilies-of-the-valley, — but in my room, dear, I have nar- 
cissus. Mamma has no more pain recently, and in her conva- 
lescence she takes such delight in the flowers and the beautiful 
spring days. We have so many birds this year ! In the morning 
and at evening we seem to be surrounded by a network of deli- 
cious sound, — sound which suggests the very essence of light 
and joy. 

“ Mamma is waking. How I wish I could see you ! But 
it will not be long now.” 


CHAPTER XLI. 


AN ADVOCATE OF HANGING. 

the second half-year of Allston’s imprison- 
ment rolled on, time did seem to move more 
rapidly ; the week-days, like all busy, monoto- 
nous days, merged into one another, and the 
intervening Sundays came and went with increasing swift- 
ness. And time did seem to expand the cramped quarters 
of the cell. 

But the deadening mental and moral influence of prison 
life became more evident. Robert felt it creeping over 
himself ; he saw it in the dulled faces of other convicts : 
although occasional mysterious flashes of intelligence pass- 
ing between prisoners revealed under the impassive surface 
fires still smouldering, to break out, perhaps, with renewed 
violence when freedom brought its natural reaction from 
arbitrary and enforced restraint. 

Day after day the prison pressed upon him the unan- 
-swerable and startling questions : What must be the 
moral effect of all this forcing, cramping, deadening pro- 
cess? What kind of men were likely to be turned out 
from this crushing, relentless, indiscriminating governmental 
machine, where the good and the bad, the weak and the 
depraved, the young and the old, were massed in together 



AN ADVOCATE OF NANG/NG. 263 

and levelled over by a resistless plane ? What chance for 
the bruised reed here ? ” 

As spring advanced, the young consumptive who worked 
beside Allston grew paler and thinner, and went through 
his daily task under visible tension of nerve. Several times 
Allston caught a glance from the dark eyes of the younger 
man, — a glance of impassioned pathos, a look that one 
could not forget. What tragedy was the secret of this 
young life ? What the unspoken entreaty in those eyes ? 

When Allston formulated this question to his cell-mate, 
Williams replied : — 

“ Oh ! you mean North ; ke claims to be innocent, I 
understand. It ’s a charge of burglary. He was a bright, 
high-spirited looking boy when he come in, but he ’s dying 
fast enough now. Innocent or guilty, he ’ll never see the 
outside of these walls, — and he knows it too, as any one 
can see by the look of his eyes.” 

The shadow of this young, suffering existence fell across 
the daily life of Allston ; he never ceased to be conscious 
of it while at work, and between the two there gradually 
developed a silent understanding and an interchange of 
feeling not dependent on words. Each day the glance of 
the dark eyes was met by a quick, responsive sympathy 
that never failed of recognition by the one on whom it was 
bestowed, although it passed unnoticed by the guard. 

No change escaped Allston ; the shortening breath, the 
alternating hectic flush and lifeless pallor, the increasing 
prominence and blueness of the veins that seamed the 
forehead and the thin hands, — all marked the rapid pro- 
gress of the enemy that was consuming the young man’s 
life. 

One morning in May, North’s place in the shop was 
vacant; the following day a stranger filled the vacancy. 
And when Allston knew that he had seen Willie North for 


264 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


the last time, he realized how strong this unvoiced friend- 
ship had become ; and for days afterwards he wondered if 
this silent friend had gone beyond the need of human sym- 
pathy, — wondered with no certainty ; for a convict appears 
and disappears among his fellows only as the machinery of 
the prison moves him. 

Allston sometimes wondered at the change in himself, — 
at the patience and submission with which he endured the 
restraint and met the exactions of prison discipline. The 
society of Williams had soon ceased to be irksome. There 
were broad lines of generosity and deep veins of tender- 
ness in the older man. In dealing with one whom he 
suspected of dishonest intentions, Williams would have 
cheated scrupulously ; in dealing with one in whose honesty 
he believed, he would have been honesty itself, — in both 
cases acting in harmony with his ideas of even-handed 
justice, an eye for an eye, and a tooth’ for a tooth.” 
He justified the unpremeditated murder that he had com- 
mitted, as man’s natural fight of retaliation ; and the Hfe- 
blood of the man he had killed had not quenched this 
feeling. So far he had lived in accordance with the in- 
stincts of a savage nature, generous or vindictive as he 
encountered good or evil in others. 

Allston studied these crude elements of human nature 
so frankly exposed to him with interest ; and it was not 
long before he discovered that they were exercising an 
influence upon himself He began to study his own crime 
in the light of this other nature. The result at first was 
^comforting, as he recognized the vast difference in spirit 
between one who would have died to restore the life he 
had taken, and one who was ready to take life again. But 
with a fairer understanding of Williams and an appreciation 
of his finer qualities he changed the basis of comparison. 
Not his own inherited generations of Christian culture. 


AJV ADVOCATE OF HANGING. 


265 


not his education or the refinements of his life, not the 
influence of the purest affections, had sufficed to expurgate 
the savage taint from his own veins. The tiger in his blood 
had lain dormant until its opportunity came, when instantly 
it had dominated his whole nature in one fatal flash of 
power. He knew now that it was there, and he believed 
that he should hold it in check forever ; but was the fabled 
alliance of Beauty and the Beast drawn from its counterpart 
in the nature of man? He saw it mirrored in himself; 
he saw it in Williams, — the same elements in different 
proportions. 

Allston lost something of the sense of uselessness and 
powerlessness which had oppressed him when he saw how 
persistently the older man’s starved mind turned to him for 
sustenance, for help to formulate its own crude ideas, and 
for light on innumerable subjects. The magazines and 
newspapers sent to Allston were shared with his cell-mate, 
and various were the subjects discussed by the two men. 
Prison-life had indeed assumed a new aspect to Williams 
since the advent of ^Uhe Colonel,” — the title by which he 
always designated Allston. 

One good man only had Williams ever known, and he 
honestly believed that few existed ; nor had the embodi- 
ment of the principles of Christianity into life occurred to 
him as a possibility, — in fact he had not made the ac- 
quaintance of the principles of Christianity. Years before 
he had chanced upon some translation from Socrates, and 
one or two Socratic maxims of universal application were 
lodged in his brain, and prepossessed him in favor of all 
so-called heathen.” 

“ I have often wished the heathen would send a few 
missionaries to convert the Christians. If I was President 
of the United States, I ’d have a translation of the teach- 
ings of Socrates in every school in the land, and I ’d have 


266 


HIS BROKEN- SWORD. 


the children read out of it every day, and give the Bible 
a rest,” he said one evening. 

Do you know how Socrates died ? ” asked Allston. 

No, I don’t; but I s’pose you can tell me about it.” 

Allston told the sublime and simple story of the death 
of the Greek martyr. 

“And this was execution under the laws of Greece,” he 
said in conclusion. “ Think of the dignity and sacredness 
which they gave to the close of the life of a condemned 
man ! Secluded from vulgar and brutal curiosity, the cup 
of poison was given into his own hand ; and he died pain- 
lessly, surrounded by his own friends : sent from earth 
because his life was considered dangerous, but sent into 
oblivion reverently, and with a just recognition of family 
ties and affection. This was in heathen Greece ; and how 
it shames the Christian American methods of the year of 
our Lord 1866 ! ” 

“ Rather different from the hangings I Ve been witness 
of,” admitted Williams. “Those kind of death-penalties 
worked with them good old Greeks ; but I have my doubts 
as to their working with Americans. They would lack the 
restraining influence of hangings.” 

Allston was struck by this current “restraining influence ” 
defence of hanging coming from the lips of one who was 
a type of the desperate class of men against whom the 
penalty was enforced. He who ought to have been able 
to judge of its efficacy sided with the law in opinion, while 
in fact he was a living refutation of the theory of “ deterrent 
effects.” 

“ Restraining influence ! ” repeated Allston emphatically. 
“ You ought to know better than that, Williams. Did you 
think of possible hanging? Did I think of it? Utter reck- 
lessness is one of the elements of impulsive murder ; and 
pre-determined, cold-blooded murder can only be under- 


AN ADVOCATE OF HANGING. 


267 


taken by men rendered insensible of danger, either through 
a low organization, or because the end in view outweighs 
all personal considerations. The law-makers say, ‘ I should 
not kill a man if I knew I should be hanged for it ; ’ and 
they think that settles the question. But self-protection is 
the last thing thought of, unless one strikes in self-defence. 
There ’s no restraining influence in hanging. Its influence 
is simply brutalizing.” 

“ I guess your head ’s level there. Colonel. But would 
you abolish capital punishment altogether, and keep fellows 
like me, who think they Ve got a right to revenge, locked 
up in some kind of a moral nursery? ” 

“ Not exactly,” returned Allston frankly. Assuming 
that a man guilty of murder in the first degree could never 
be trusted with liberty, I should have his life taken by some 
painless, simple method. This should be done because the 
man could not be returned to society without risk. And, 
generally speaking, it would be better for the criminal. We 
shudder when we think of the scaffold and the rope. The 
revolting instruments of execution shut out the deeper 
thought of death. But the realization of near and certain 
death has a most powerful effect on man’s moral nature. 
On the battle-field one faces death, but he don’t expect to 
die. But if there ’s any moral sense in a man it is aroused 
when his thought really grasps the awful fact of his own 
approaching death. Half the murderers hanged die like 
saints. That once seemed to me a most curious thing ; it 
never occurred to me that the change could be genuine. 
Now I can understand it ; since I know more of the depths 
of human nature I begin to believe in its heights.” 

“ But a life sentence gives a man some show for freedom, 
and a longer chance to repent.” 

^^Does it make a man repent?” Allston gave a sharp 
glance of interrogation. Williams dropped his eyes; he 


268 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


made no other reply. Allston continued : A life sentence 
in our prisons is the devil’s device for moral paralysis ; but 
anyway, do you think it a merciful alternative? ” 

No ; better, a thousand times better, take his life. 
Hanging would of been nothing to what I’ve gone through. 
Still, I was terrible anxious not to be hung. That would of 
fell hard on Violetta ; but as to myself, what ’s five minutes 
of choking and darkness to five or ten or twenty year of slow 
torture ? It ain’t the torture of what you have to bear so much 
as what you have to go without. You don’t know what it 
is, with your sweet-smelling love-letters coming every night. 
But fancy you could n’t read or write, like half these fel- 
lows, — and many of them ’s got wives or mothers, or, worse 
still, have n’t a soul on earth to think of them, — and what 
if never a thought from the outside got in to you, just 
prison sights and prison sounds and prison smells year in 
and year out ; and evenings likely a tormenting cell-mate, 
or else to sit alone apd eat out your heart? No wonder 
such a lot goes crazy. I heard it said that in some prisons 
life-men never keep their reason above ten year. I tell 
you. Colonel, a man gets acquainted with suffering before 
his brain gives way from remorse or confinement, or the 
longing to see his folks, or from all put together. Some- 
times I think I know the taste of ihe dregs of the cup of 
trouble, till I recollect that I ’ve got my reason, as far as 
a man can judge of that himself. But it was n’t like 
Violetta to get a divorce and marry another fellow, as 
some folks’ wives does.” 

Who has reached that depth of misery where sinner or 
sufferer cannot be seen below? 


CHAPTER XLII. 


MEN AND BROTHERS. 



jNE radiant morning in June Katharine Allston 
awoke within the prison walls. She dressed 
early, and was attracted to her window by the 
tramp of the convicts on their way to breakfast. 
Who that has once heard the clanking sound of that lock- 
step can ever forget it? Down in the yard below the long 
lines of men appeared, suggesting, in their prison clothing 
and sinuous movement, immense serpents ; and every link 
in the moving chain a living human being. Immortal? If 
they are to be taken at the world’s valuation of them, it is 
to be hoped not. 

At supper the evening before, when the long tables in the 
dining-room were surrounded by an animated gathering, — 
the warden’s family, guests, and officers of the institution, — 
one did not readily realize that the cheerful Warden House 
itself existed only as the keystone of the adjacent living 
tomb over which it stood guard. Now, as the inmates of 
this tomb poured out, they became the only reality. 

The intense absorption in which she looked down upon 
them rendered Katharine oblivious to the fact that many an 
eye, glancing from below upward, caught the vision of the 
fair and sorrowful face, with the soul in the eyes, resting 
unconsciously against the grating of the window ; each one 


2/0 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


who saw her wondered what wretch among them was re- 
sponsible for the expression in that face ; nor did they 
easily forget this object-lesson in what prisons mean to 
women. Later they recognized the same woman’s face in 
chapel, with the same absorbed expression. 

As Mrs. Allston sat on the rostrum with the other guests 
in chapel, and watched the long procession of prisoners file 
in and form the solid congregation, she was taken com- 
pletely out of her own consciousness into this strange, 
unnatural life. 

It was a cloudless summer’s day, and through the long 
barred windows entered bands of radiant sunlight, falling 
across the width of the chapel and resting upon the men. 
This June sunshine in a prison, was it a benediction, or a 
mockery ? 

Oh ! ” thought Katharine, why does not the chaplain 
read to them, — 

“ ‘ Whatsis so rare as a day in June ?’ 

and take them out of this prison away into the fields and 
under the blue sky?” 

But what is this hymn in which these men, these dregs 
of humanity, are joining? ‘‘ We ’re on the border-land of 
heaven.” Was this, too, a mockery? The words as they 
fell upon Katharine’s ear produced an actual pain, they 
seemed so false and hollow. Could these men be accepted 
by Heaven while unfit for human brotherhood ? If not an 
insult to Christianity, what a reflection upon man’s course 
towards man ! By a rapid transition it was not the sea of 
convict faces before her that she saw, it was three crosses, 
and a self-convicted thief, and that convict’s cross truly the 
border-land of heaven, — unless the story of the crucifixion 
were falsified. The scene was still typical of the different 
attitude of God and of man towards the fallen. 


MEAT AND BROTHERS. 


271 


And as the present again asserted itself, the men were 
singing the last lines of their hymn, ‘‘We’re on the border- 
land of heaven,” while the sunshine lighted their faces. 
No, it was not a mockery, but a strange, incongruous reality. 
The Christian religion had planted her banner of hope 
even in the heart of a prison. 

While the services proceeded, Mrs. Allston studied the 
countenances of the convicts. Many of them in their list- 
less indifference appeared to her merely blanks, untraced 
by anything that could be called character. 

The majority of the harder faces were among the older 
men, some of them indicating the lowest organization, brutal 
and sensual ; others bearing impress of repeated crimes ; 
a few looked recklessly capable of any atrocity ; while others 
sat wrapped in sullen gloom, with downcast eyes. Scattered 
among these lower types were bright, intelligent, manly 
faces of self-respecting men ; several were noticeably re- 
fined in appearance, the refinement of the face only 
thrown into stronger relief by the contrast of the coarse 
dress ; but the greater number of the heads were character- 
ized by receding foreheads and receding chins, indicating 
warped and stunted rather than perverted force. 

The services were admirably conducted. The prisoners 
joined in singing the familiar hymns with evident enjoy- 
ment of the only occasion on which they were allowed to 
let out their voices. 

It was not the regular chaplain, but a dapper young 
stranger who preached the sermon, opening with the 
remark : “ There is probably not one among you who did 
not learn to say his prayers at his mother’s knee.” 

This startling announcement was accepted with passive 
stolidity by the majority of the congregation, although one 
of the men on the front seat indulged in a sidelong glance 
and a faint, sarcastic smile. However, as the minister pro- 

18 


272 


HIS BROKEN SWORE. 


ceeded with a sermon evidently not written for convicts, he 
gradually excited an interest on the part of the prisoners, 
who no doubt found it refreshing to be addressed simply as 
men ; and when at the close of the sermon there came an 
argument in favor of the love of the Divine Father based 
on the simple plea : “ Some of you have little children : 
look into your own hearts and read your feelings towards 
them,” many of the men were visibly affected, and tears 
coursed down more than one of the seamed and hardened 
faces. 

A class-meeting was held at the close of the service. 
About fifty of the more religiously or more hypocritically 
inclined remained, a majority of whom were colored 
brethren ; but there was also many an old face whose deep 
lines of sin and suffering proclaimed, The way of the 
transgressor is hard.” Each man was allowed to relate his 
experience, although the chaplain gave warning that all 
declarations of innocence tended to impair the value of 
testimony. The usual prayer-meeting commonplace per- 
sonal remarks followed, mechanically uttered and indiffer- 
ently received in most instances; but when one rough 
and ignorant old man got up, and with evident effort and 
broken tones made his simple confession of faith and re- 
pentance, a vibration of sympathetic interest flashed over 
the meeting, evident as the movement of a wind-swept 
field of grain. Unmistakably, this man’s profession was 
accepted as genuine. 

In striking contrast was a stout, complacent youth of 
dusky hue, with his broad face wreathed in smiles which 
exhibited two rows of dazzling ivories. He assured the 
meeting that he always had been, then was, and ever should 
be, a Christian ; and that, moreover, he intended to devote 
his life to preaching when restored freedom allowed an 
opportunity. 


MEN AND BROTHERS. 


273 


In this connection the warden whispered to Mrs. Allston ; 
“ That man has been here five times. He is as sure to 
come back again as a ball thrown into the air falls to the 
ground. He is a predestined thief, but good-natured, and 
buoyant to the last degree.” 

Does the prison help men to become honest?” Kath- 
arine impulsively asked. The warden shook his head. 

Immediately after dinner Katharine hastened away to 
the usher’s office to meet her husband. Robert gave one 
look into the eyes of his wife, then drew her gently down 
beside him, saying: “What is it, dear? Tell me what has 
hurt you.” 

“ Can you read it in my face ? Oh, yes ! I want to tell 
you. It ’s going to mar our afternoon, but we can’t help 
that; we don’t want to escape from what we ought to 
know, do we?” and she clung to him trembling. He 
soothed her as though she were a frightened child. 

“ Perhaps what you have been learning will not seem so 
dreadful after you have talked it over with me. You have 
on your wedding-dress, dear, have n’t you ? Every fold in 
it is like a poem to me ; I ’m glad to see you in it again. 
But where are your blush-roses ? ” 

His arm was around her waist, and her head rested 
against his breast, when she related the cause of her dis- 
turbance. 

“ I went into the hospital after chapel service this morn- 
ing. Mother rather objected to my accepting the warden’s 
invitation to go there ; but I told her there was no use in 
my trying to shut my eyes or to turn back now, I must 
go on into this life. 

“ The moment that I saw the faces of the men in the 
hospital, I felt so sorry for them, and I asked the warden 
if he would leave me there for an hour. He smiled in his 


274 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


peculiar gentle fashion, told the doctor to allow me the 
freedom of the wards, and departed. 

“ And then I went up to a listless group of three men. 
One, an old Irishman distorted out of all regular shape with 
rheumatism, gave me an oddly pathetic and grotesque 
smile of welcome ; another, who was a mere boy, had the 
most expressionless face, — as if it had been made of putty, 
and smoothed over when it was soft j the third immediately 
offered me his chair. 

After a few general remarks to the poor warped crea- 
ture and the blank-faced youth, I turned to the other man 
who had seated himself near me. I can’t tell you what an 
impression of dignity he gave me. He was young, with a 
well-formed head and strikingly regular features, with 
fearless eyes, and a quiet force of utterance when he spoke. 
I should have noticed him anywhere. I wonder now that 
I dared question him as I did, and I wonder more that he 
answered my questions ; but I opened a regular catechism, 
and our dialogue was something like this : — 

“ ‘ What are you here for ? ’ 

‘‘ * Burglary.’ 

« t Were you sentenced justly? ’ 

‘^‘Yes.’ 

‘ Were you ever in prison before ? ’ 

‘ Yes. This is the second conviction for burglary.’ 

‘‘ ‘ Were you guilty before ? ’ 

‘‘‘Yes.’ 

“ ‘ Shall you follow the calling of a burglar when you are 
released ? ’ 

“ ‘ When I was released last time, I tried to get work ; 
but the war was over, and the country flooded with men out 
of employment. The proverb says, “ War makes thieves, 
and peace hangs them.” I could n’t find any way to make 
a living honestly, and so I tried dishonesty. When I am 


MEN AND BROTHERS. 2/5 

free again I shall work if I can find work ; if I can’t get 
work, 1 shall steal. The world owes me a living.’ 

“ What could I answer to that condensed assertion of the 
natural rights of man, Robert ? ” 

“ What did you answer?” 

“ I said, ‘ In your place I should probably feel as you do.’ ” 
“ That ’s good. He believed in you then ? ” 

“ I hope he did. He replied with another apt proverb, 
‘ It ’s easy to keep the castle that never was besieged ; ’ and 
then, as the other men moved away and left us alone, he 
gave me the outlines of his story in the fewest possible 
words. It seems that at fourteen he ran away from home, 
from a step-father who quarrelled with his mother on his 
account. He found work on a Mississippi river-boat ; but 
he said it was a terrible place for a boy, and he learned 
nothing but evil for the time he was there. At last he had 
a quarrel with one of the men and lost his place ; and to 
avenge this injury, Ho get even with the man who had 
injured him,’ he said, he stole this man’s money and again 
ran away. After he felt himself already a criminal he kept 
on stealing. He told me that he had been a very bad man, 
and had given trouble in prison. He knew that he was in 
consumption and likely to die. He has lost all trace of his 
mother, and receives no letters ; and so I asked him to write 
to me. And then — I don’t remember a word that I said ; 
but I spoke to him of his ruined past and his uncertain 
future, and of individual responsibility. He listened in at- 
tentive silence, and when I paused he looked at me so 
seriously out of his deep gray eyes, and he said : ‘ I can’t 
promise to be a good man, my past makes that impos- 
sible ; but I want to promise you that I will give up swear- 
ing, and will try and have pure thoughts.’ ” 

Robert kissed his wife very tenderly just at that point of 
the story. I don’t wonder that he said that to you, Katie ; 


2/6 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


I don’t wonder that you made him feel that he wanted 
to make you just that offering of a pure heart. And then 
what did you say? ” 

“ Why, I was so surprised and sort of touched that I 
involuntarily answered, ‘ Thank you ! ’ And I told him that 
I wanted him to feel that I should never think of him as a 
convict, but as a man ; and he said that he knew that, with- 
out my assurance of it.” 

I should like to hear that man tell the story of this visit. 
Who was he ? ” 

“ He gave his name as Bruce Downing.” 

“ And so it is Bruce Downing’s fate that has clouded your 
eyes to-day?” 

“ Not that alone. For all my sympathy with the man, 
his fate seems the natural result of his life. He had cer- 
tainly thrown away his right to liberty ; I think he felt that 
too. As I left Downing to go down-stairs, my attention 
was attracted by a clear-cut, delicate pale face looking at 
me with an expression that invited recognition ; and I 
paused beside him with the stupid question : ‘ Are you 
getting better?’ 

“ ‘ Do you think I look as if I could ever be better? ’ he 
asked with feverish eagerness. 

“I did not answer this, but sat down beside him and 
told him my name ; and when I said ‘ Allston,’ his whole 
face lighted, and he told me that he worked beside you in 
the shop for a long time. He seemed to have taken the 
greatest fancy to you, and had heard something of our story 
through the chaplain or the usher; he was so evidently 
interested and pleased to meet your wife that I began to 
feel as if I had met an old friend. He looked so very ill 
that I wondered at his bright animation. But when I rose 
to go, his face changed instantly ; and when he took my 
hand as I said good-bye, he looked up with such an agony 


MEN AND BROTHERS. 


277 


of despair, — such passionate entreaty in his great black 
eyes, — it seemed as if a curtain had been thrown back, 
and I saw right into his soul. It was such an appeal for 
help, — as if a drowning man were reaching for a hand to 
save him. 

“ ‘ Is there anything in the world that I can do for you ? ’ 
I asked. 

“ ‘ No, nothing,’ he answered hopelessly, dropping his 
eyes ; I, too, knew that what he wanted I could not give. 
‘ I do so long to be out of this dreadful convict dress, to be 
free at least to die like a man,’ he added wearily. And then 
he looked up at me again with such earnestness, I can’t 
tell you, Robert, and said : ^ I am innocent, I want you to 
believe, and to tell your husband, that I am innocent.’ 

“ ‘ You are in7iocent !' I exclaimed ; for that thought had 
not occurred to me. 

‘‘ And then the doctor came, and said that he must go to 
dinner ; and I could only press that dying man’s hand and 
assure him that I did believe in his innocence. 

“As we left, the doctor told me that the poor fellow, 
whom he called Willie North, might die any day, or might 
last for weeks. They have sent for his friends, and a par- 
don is expected every day ; but both pardon and friends 
may come too late. All through dinner I could see noth- 
ing but his eyes. I felt as if I should scream if I let go of 
myself for a moment. Oh, Robert, Robert, how terrible 
it is, and how hard it is to understand ! ” and burying 
her face against her husband, she let the hot tears flow 
unchecked. 

“ It is hard for you to know all this,” he said, caressing 
her shining hair ; and then he told her how his own sym- 
pathies were enlisted for this same Willie North, and how 
strong was his intuitive confidence in the boy. 

“ I believe that he is innocent, since he says that he is. 


278 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


I should believe anything that he told me,” Robert said; 
and then he added : “ Katie, think a moment. If Willie 
North is to die here, is n’t it infinitely better that he dies 
innocent than guilty? Be sure that somewhere, deep in 
his heart, he too feels this.” 

“ Better for him, yes ; but such a dreadful wrong ! To 
imprison one who is innocent until he dies ! Is n’t that the 
blackest of crimes? And yet, who but the victim is going 
to suffer for that? Isn’t there anything that I can do for 
him?” 

‘‘Write him one of your sweet and courageous notes 
when you get home. It is a little thing, but it breaks the 
sense of desolation.” 

“ And I ’ll tell him that you do believe in him and in 
his innocence.” 

Katharine never knew how it was that her husband won 
her thought away from the prison and its inmates; but 
when Mrs. Kennard joined them half an hour later, she 
found the two quite in a world of their own. 

After greeting Robert cordially, and studying him for a 
while with a puzzled expression, Mrs. Kennard remarked 
impressively : “ Well, Robert, I see you are Colonel Allston 
still.” 

“ Thank you ; and I can return the compliment to my 
mother-in-law by assuring her that she has come out from 
her long illness as beautiful as ever.” 

“Do you think so?” Mrs. Kennard answered with a 
pleased and conscious flush, for she had always been very 
fond of her own beauty ; but she turned the compliment 
by saying : “ If I ’m looking well, it is only a tribute to your 
wife’s splendid nursing.” 

“ I forgot to tell you,” said Katharine, showing her dim- 
ple, “ that I am responsible for the improvement in 
mother’s appearance.” 


MEN AND BROTHERS. 


279 


Katie,” said her husband when Mrs. Kennard had left 
them for the close of their interview, “ I want you to prom- 
ise to do something for me.” 

“ Yes?” 

“ I want you to begin practising duets with Dora Criss- 
field. You need more music in your life ; you are looking 
too spirituelle. I am afraid your soul is absorbing your 
body ; and some day when I go to take you in my arms I 
shall find that you are only the shadow of my wife. But 
don’t play nervous, morbid music, or slow minor move- 
ments. Don’t touch that heart-breaking Melodie Irlandaise. 
Do you remember that sunny, rippling little piece that Mrs. 
Vandyne played the last time we were at the Brentanos’ ? ” 

I remember Dora’s asking, ‘ What is that charming 
thing with that drapery of gossamer mus — ’ ” 

Yes, that ’s the one. You must learn that, and play 
Mendelssohn ; and what ’s that magnificent, inspiring 
Beethoven sonata?” 

“Oh ! you mean that tremendously difficult Opus io6, — 
that would last me until you come home ! I ’ll tell you 
what I shall play every day : ‘ He of all the best, the 
noblest.’ And I suppose you want me to look at the lake 
only when the sky is blue above it, to read the ^ Pickwick 
Papers,’ and to plan new dresses. I understand what you 
mean, dear, and will try to do as you wish.” 


CHAPTER XLIII. 


MR. AND MRS. SMITH. 



N Katharine’s next letter Robert saw how she 
had caught the spirit of his wish and acted 
upon it without delay, for she wrote : — 


“I have not forgotten Willie North’s eyes, — I never shall 
forget them; but T am not going to let myself think about 
them. This morning I sent him a box of the most beautiful 
flowers, among them a perfect stem of the lovely Annunciation 
Lily, with buds that will open and last for days to come ; and 
with them I sent a note. 

“ And then after dinner, as there was a sort of empty and 
melancholy feeling in my heart (I am afraid I wanted to see 
you), I obediently went up to Dora’s. 

“ While I stood on the doorstep, I could hear her playing 
that exquisite and brilliant Chopin Ballade in A flat. Of 
course she was oblivious to everything, door-bells included ; 
and I went up the stairs and listened unnoticed in her open 
door as she went on, through where the delicious, caressing 
movement develops into that superb, rushing climax, which 
she played splendidly. How I wish you could have heard it ! 

“ As she struck the final chord, I, slipped across the room 
and clasped my hands over her eyes and kissed her ; and she 
exclaimed instantly: ‘Those are the little paws of my own 
kitten ! ’ 



MR. AND MRS. SMITH. 


281 


“ Then I gave her an account of my visit to the prison, — all 
but about Willie North ; I did not want to speak of him : and 
I told her that you wanted me to become more material, and 
had sent her a commission to amuse me. 

“ ‘ I cannot be as funny as I dare,’ she began, after her 
manner of inverting quotations. But looking into her laugh- 
ing eyes, I could see that she was thinking of something that 
amused her ; and forthwith she told me of meeting that 
pretty little butterfly Mrs. Elamsford and her sister yesterday. 
This happened in the street, where they stopped for a mo- 
ment’s chat, near some blooming locust-trees. Mrs. Elams- 
ford remarked the beauty of the trees, and said : ‘ You know 
Tennyson has a poem, “The Locust-Eaters.’” 

“ Her sister nervously corrected, ‘ You mean the “ Lotos- 
Eaters.” ’ 

“ ‘ That is a distinction without a difference,’ Mrs. Elams- 
ford retorted, with her bland and lofty little smile. 

“It takes Dora’s inimitable manner to do her stories jus- 
tice ; but I ’ll continue with her next. 

“This morning, while waiting for a music-pupil in the 
adjoining room, she overheard this bit of dialogue between 
two ladies : — 

“ ‘ Are you going to see “ Romeo and Juliet ” this evening ? ’ 

“‘No, I never go to hear Shakspeare’s tragedies; they all 
e7id so bad."* 

“‘All but the “ Merchant of Venice.” ’ 

“ Dora said that the innocent seriousness of the two was 
delicious. Being in the Shakspearian line, she produced from 
her pocket what she called a neat little piece of newspaper 
reporting, to this effect : ‘ Mr. Diggs appeared at the mas- 

querade party in the character of Mephistophilius, from Shak- 
speare’s well-known play, “ The Merry Wives of Windsor.” ’ 
Dora thought it looked hopeful that ‘ Mephistophilius ’ was 
recognized as an imaginary, and not taken for an historical 
character. 

“ At the tea-table I aired Dora’s anecdotes for the benefit 
of father and mother, and here I have detailed them to you. 
I have done my best to be amused and to be amusing. 


282 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


“ Papa agrees with you that I am not looking well, and I 
am to be sent off away from home soon, — perhaps to see Mrs, 
Smith and ‘ Jim,’ as Mrs. Smith has written a moving entreaty 
for my society.” 

Not long after, Mrs. Allston went to Mrs. Smith, “ im- 
molated in the wilds of Iowa.” 

Mrs. Smith had revived the familiar use of her girlhood 
name by bestowing an equal division of it upon the 
twins, Eleanor and Beverly, whose presence dominated the 
home. 

“Behold the roses that have blossomed in my wilder- 
ness ! ” Mrs. Smith had said, flushing with motherly pride 
and affection as she presented the twins to Katharine ; and 
from that moment the babies were everywhere, at all times, 
and formed the engrossing topic of conversation. When 
the ladies went for the daily morning drive in the phaeton, 
each carried a child in her lap, and the four alike were 
given over to infantile nonsense. Mrs. Smith insisted on 
having a tin-type group taken, — Iowa photographs at that 
time were not to be regarded with complacency; and 
Robert Allston was consequently the recipient of a quartet 
in which Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Allston appeared in pictur- 
esque, broad-brimmed sun-hats, while in the lap of each 
lady reposed a twin, the most prominent feature of the 
picture being a row of four feet, colossal in proportion to 
the size of the children to whom they belonged. 

The twins monopolized a large place in Katharine’s 
letters to her husband ; but Mr. Smith was not neglected in 
these epistles. Katharine wrote : — 

“ He is the most delightful creature, and in his way no less 
interesting than his wife. He is large and blond, the very 
embodiment of affectionate amiability, thoroughly permeated 
with quiet humor; and he speaks in a low, gentle drawl, de- 
void of all emphasis, and never indulges in superlatives. 


MR. AND MRS. SMITH. 


283 


“The only time I have seen Mrs. Smith ruffled was this 
morning, when she came into the dining-room and discovered 
by the glaring light that her husband had been trimming the 
grape-vine which shaded an east window, and had bereft the 
vine of nearly all its leaves, in order, he said, to ripen the grapes. 
Mrs. Smith was very vigorous in her condemnation of this 
course, and made some rather exasperating comments, all of 
which her husband accepted with a soft, deprecating smile ; 
but he excused himself from the table before breakfast was 
over. A few moments after, Mrs. Smith began to shake with 
laughter, and pointed to the window; and behold Mr. Smith 
with a ball of string, carefully tying the leaves back on the 
vine, apparently oblivious of observers ! When he had ef- 
fected a temporary shade, he suddenly parted the leaves and 
looked through them at his wife with a propitiatory smile that 
would have softened Calvin himself. Mrs. Smith seems 
younger and less responsible than ever, and plays with the 
children exactly as a child amuses herself with her dolls ; 
although Beverly and Eleanor never are neglected, and the 
maternal friskiness is counterbalanced by the staid solemnity 
of the middle-aged nurse, who maintains strict vigilance over 
the mamma as well as the twins.” 

One of Katharine’s letters contained an enclosure from 
the pen of Mrs. Smith. The note began : — 

“ I feel it my duty to warn you that your wife is becoming 
frightfully demoralized under my roof. She came here looking 
fragile as thistle-down; but she is gaining a truly plebeian color. 
Her elegant and dignified style of deportment is completely 
undermined. Only yesterday I found her actually seated up- 
on the floor with her lap full of hair-pins, and her beautiful 
hair unloosed, and my angelic cherubs cavorting beneath it as 
under a tent. She has ceased to think ; she no longer reads 
anything but Mother Goose; and — would you believe it? — 
she indulges in soda-water and peanuts! 

“ One deeper depth, one wilder revelry still remains : she 
has not yet penetrated the village ‘ ice-cream saloon,’ upon 


284 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


whose sign ice-incrusted letters sparkle against a ground of 
mazarine blue. It is my husband, my own adorable, incor- 
rigible Jimj who is responsible for her aberrations ; and there 
is no knowing how far she may be led astray. Strange to say, 
this miscreant preserves all her charm, even in the act of vio- 
lating my severe Bostonian theories of decorum. She has 
quite bewitched the gentlemen of my family: Mr. Smith’s 
benign countenance fairly radiates with admiration when he 
gazes upon her ; and my son Beverly is her hopeless captive, 
and frequently embraces her with an impassioned ardor that is 
fatal to the symmetrical arrangement of her hair.” 

This little off-hand burlesque sketch of Katharine’s di- 
versions in Iowa, and the effect of Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s 
influence, was worth more to Robert Allston than pages of 
sympathetic consolation. He liked to think of Katharine 
entering into these novel performances with genuine girlish 
enjoyment, and her own letters gave evidence that the 
strain under which she had been living was yielding to a 
healthy relaxation. The sojourn in Babyland did her a 
world of good, and long after her return to Milwaukee the 
Mother Goose jingles echoed through her more serious 
thoughts. 


I 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE FATE OF WILLIE NORTH. 


“ O prisoned soul that may not see the sun ! 

O voice that never may be comforted ! 

You cannot break the web that Fate has spun, 

Out of your world are light and gladness fled.” 

CHANGE in railroad time gave Mrs. Allston a 
longer interval between trains when she next 
visited her husband. A patient in a critical 
condition required her father’s presence in 
Milwaukee, and this time she went to the prison alone, 
going directly to the usher’s office, where she met Mr. 
McIntyre. She felt very much at home with this old 
gentleman ; every one throughout the prison felt at home 
with him. He knew more of the unseen side of the 
prisoners’ life than even the chaplain. His views on the 
prison were very radical ; he knew the convicts simply as 
men, ignoring completely all such terms as ‘‘ criminal 
classes.” One felt the spring of genial humanity that 
flowed beneath his caustic manner. 

^‘What are you going to do with all your time to-day?” 
he asked Mrs. Allston. 

“ Might I talk with you for a few moments ? I ’d like to 
see my husband for the last half hour.” 



286 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


“ Talk with me all you please, and I ’ll take you over to 
the hospital if you like.” 

Thank you ; but I do not care to go there this time. 
When I was here in June I met a young man named 
North at the hospital. He was dying, and he said that 
he was innocent. Did he live to get his pardon and get 
home?” 

He was innocent ; he died here. The people that 
sent him here have got something to answer for in eternity. 
When I was a young man in Scotland I heard Chalmers 
preach a sermon before the Scotch assizes. He predicted 
that at the bar of Heaven many a judge would find himself 
condemned by the very judgment he had passed upon 
ignorant and downtrodden men who by crime had re- 
volted against misery and want. I have remembered that 
for forty years.” 

“How can such things happen? How do you know 
that North was innocent?” 

“ I always knew it. No man who looked into that boy’s 
face when he came here could have honestly believed that 
he was a burglar and a liar. He was just past eighteen when 
he came, as clean and bright and honest a looking boy as 
I ever saw. He hoped for a speedy release, and expected 
every one to believe him when he said he was innocent ; 
but no one, unless it was the chaplain and myself, did be- 
lieve him. After a while he understood this, and knew he 
was thought to be lying ; that hurt him, and it goaded him. 
His people were paying a lawyer to get him pardoned. 
Week after week he looked for news from Madison ; he was 
always looking for a letter. When two or three years had 
passed he began to show a change. He lost his expression 
of hope ; he did n’t say any more about being innocent, 
but settled down into a sort of grim endurance of his fate. 
Then he began to lose flesh and to cough, and instead of 


THE FATE OF WILLIE NORTH. 287 

the old cheerful spirit there came a hunted look into his 
eyes, — a look of fear. 

“ Some two years and more ago another prisoner was 
brought here and put in the cell next North. This man’s 
name was Jackson \ he was a professional, — a thief and a 
liar. One night I happened to be in the cell-house, and 
stopped to speak to Jackson, and North gave one of his 
hollow coughs, easily heard in the adjoining cell. 

' Who ’s that young fellow dying in there ? ’ Jackson 
asked me. And when I said it was Will North, he asked 
where he was from ; and I told him what I knew. Jackson 
paled and flushed, and altogether acted in a singular way ; 
and suddenly he caught hold of me in great agitation and 
whispered : ‘ He ’s innocent ; I done that job of burglary.’ 
I believed him, and advised him to do the square thing 
and own up soon, or it would be too late. The next week 
I was summoned to the warden’s office, and told that 
Jackson wished to make a confession, and wanted me as 
witness. 

‘‘ Jackson, a great vigorous Irishman, came in. His face 
was white as a sheet, and his lips were set. He was sworn 
by a notary, and then made a clear statement, taking the 
responsibility of the burglary, and giving details as to how 
it was done, and how he escaped. He had never seen 
North before he came here, and did not remember the 
name of the man who was convicted ; indeed he said that 
he lost trace of the case, as he left the State at once. But 
he marched next North in the gang, and had been singu- 
larly impressed by his face, and heard him cough at night ; 
and altogether he suffered terrible remorse when he under- 
stood that North was his victim.” 

Did n’t they send that statement right to the Governor, 
and was it not enough to bring about North’s release ? ” 
asked Mrs. Allston with excitement. 


19 


288 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


** In common-sense and justice it should have been. 
North burst into tears when he heard of Jackson’s confes- 
sion, and sent the most grateful message through me. He 
thought his liberty was a sure thing then. But common- 
sense and justice dorCt run criminal affairs ^ — I can tell you 
that, Mrs. Allston. The statement was sent right on to 
North’s lawyer. But the story got into the papers ; those 
who did not call Jackson a crank said that the confession 
was all arranged between two criminals : the usual lot 
of trash was printed and believed. Now, there ’s no doubt 
that there’s greater inhumanity in the average criminal 
than in the average individual in the outside community ; 
but the aggregate of the average inhumanity in the com- 
munity is powerful and cruel, it conquers and wrongs as 
no individual can conquer and wrong. It was just this 
that worked against these two men, killing the one and 
hardening the other morally as his course of crime had 
never hardened him. 

North’s lawyer took the confession, but he could not 
work up outside proof to substantiate it. Jackson’s term 
expired the fifth of last June. He went directly to the 
place where the burglary was committed, and faced an old 
indictment and established his own guilt and North’s in- 
nocence beyond all question. North died the twentieth of 
June. His pardon came the next day. Jackson was sent 
back here for fifteen years on the old indictment. He 
told me that after his confession he prayed every day of his 
life for North’s release, and vowed that his own life should 
be spotless hereafter if Heaven would restore liberty and life 
to North. You know how his prayers were answered. He 
is the hardest man in the prison now, — the most sincere 
atheist I ever knew. It is n’t Heaven that is responsible, it 
is man ; and not the dangerous criminal, but the average 
minister of justice in this our so-called Christian civilization. 


THE FATE OF WILLIE NORTH 


289 


“ It ’s a dreadful thing to have a son brutally killed out- 
right, cut down suddenly in the full strength of manhood. 
But what is it to have a son gradually murdered, through 
six years of torment of soul and body, — branded with crime ; 
powerless, humiliated, smarting under an unutterable sense 
of wrong ; with all the passions of youth, the natural desires 
for companionship and pleasure crushed and starved, until 
the proud young spirit is broken and the vigorous young 
body succumbs to disease. This administration of justice, 
what does it amount to ? When an innocent man is con- 
victed of guilt, there must be uncertainty of proof ; and of 
all the deadly, irreparable wrongs, the imprisonment of an 
innocent man is the blackest. It would not happen so 
often as it does, except that in the average man the desire 
to avenge a wrong is sponger than the desire to secure 
justice.” 

“ How could Willie North’s mother live and bear this? ” 

“ His mother? She did not escape so easily as he did,” 
Mr. McIntyre replied with a grim smile. “ Women are 
tough, you know. His mother has lived on j she was taken 
to an insane asylum two weeks after they gave back to her 
the dead body of her murdered son. Some one must suf- 
fer for every murder, you know ; and in this case it was the 
old mother.” 

Katharine’s eyes were blazing and her lips trembling as 
Mr. McIntyre ceased speaking. He caught her look, and 
resumed in a tone from which he dropped all the con- 
centrated feeling that had added such force to his words. 
“ North was delighted over your flowers, Mrs. Allston ; 
you ’ve no idea what pleasure they gave him. Every day 
he tried to write you a note of thanks ; but he was too weak. 
He kept the flowers by his bedside, and would not let them 
be taken away. The lilies lasted long enough to be placed 
in his coffin.” 


290 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


“ That is the saddest story I ever heard. I did not know 
that life could be so hard. I have found strength to bear 
the tragedy that came into my life ; but this, I see, was sor- 
row and wrong too heavy to be endured. If only the poor 
mother had died ! ’’ 

“ Mrs. Allston,” said the old Scotchman, with the almost 
womanly tenderness which sometimes softened his manner, 
and had endeared him to so many, you might write to 
Mrs. North.” 

“ But you told me she was deranged.” 

“ I did not tell you she was out of the reach of kindness. 
Do you think one who is deranged cannot feel sympathy? 
This poor mother’s heart might gladly open to let in a ray 
of comfort from a tender, loving woman like you. She is 
most likely always thinking of her boy in prison, or dead : 
help her to think of him living in heaven. If there is a 
heaven, he must be there ; if there is a Providence, there 
must be some divine compensation for a life blasted by 
human injustice. Write to the mother simply and from 
your heart ; it can do no harm.” 

“ I will,” Katharine answered. Then, looking seriously at 
Mr. McIntyre, she added : “ You are a very good man ; I 
want you to be Robert’s friend.” 

I a good man ? There you are mistaken. There ’s 
many a man as good as I in this prison, — I am an old 
heretic ; but I ’m a friend of Colonel Allston’s.” 


CHAPTER XLV. 


ONE, OR MANY? 

The upper region of the air admits neither clouds nor tempests, the 
thunders and meteors are found below ; and this is the difference between a 
mean and an exalted mind. — Seneca. 



HERE is another prisoner besides my husband 
that I wish to see to-day. I should like an in- 
terview with Bruce Downing.” 

Mrs. Allston had received several letters from 
Downing, who had gone back to his work in the shop the 
day after she saw him in the hospital. He had scarcely 
alluded to his health in his letters ; but the impression was 
given that he was gaining strength. Katharine was startled 
by his altered appearance as he came in to see her, — 
his face flushed with hectic fever, his breathing short and 
irregular, and his whole frame wasted with disease. She 
saw at a glance that this was likely to be their last meeting, 
although he spoke hopefully and cheerfully. 

Downing’s whole face was illumined with pleasure at see- 
ing Mrs. Allston, and he talked with her with perfect freedom 
and simplicity. He seemed to feel that his own religious 
experience belonged to her. 

“ I was an infidel, and should have died an infidel if I 
had not met you,” he said. “ All the ministers in the coun- 
try could not have done for me what that one talk with you 


292 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


did. From that day I have tried to be a Christian. It was 
hard work building on a foundation of ten years of wicked- 
ness. At first I used to get discouraged ; but one day I 
remembered that when I began work in the shop I thought 
I never could learn to do the work given me. I thought 
so for a long time ; and yet all the while I was learning. 
That thought gave me courage, for I knew that with my re- 
ligion it must be the same, — that all the while I was learn- 
ing. Of course no one believes much in me, I have to 
expect that ; but I know that I have two friends who do be- 
lieve in me, — One above, and you. I found some verses 
in a paper, and I learned them ; and I have been trying to 
live by them.” 

Can you repeat them to me? ” 

And then for a moment he showed a little embarrass- 
ment. “ I don’t know, — I never said any poetry in my 
life ; but I ’ll try, for I want you to hear them.” 

His embarrassment increased the shortness of his breath, 
which was painfully broken as he repeated, — 

“ I stand upon the mount of God 
With gladness in my soul ; 

I see the storms in vale beneath, 

I hear the thunders roll. 

“ But I am calm with thee, my God, 

Beneath these glorious skies ; 

And to the height on which I stand 
Nor storm nor cloud can rise.” 

This simple and quiet avowal of spiritual elevation, of a 
conscious aim to live above the hard fact that he was suffer- 
ing and dying, that he was a convict destitute of everything 
that gives value to life ; this setting aside of the temporal, 
and opening his heart to the eternal, — made an impression 
upon Katharine too deep for words. She, who had come 
as guide and teacher to this perishing criminal, felt herself 


ONE, OR MANY? 


293 


a child accepting from another the proof of a victory of 
faith such as she had not dreamed of. And the force of this 
lesson lay in the absolute unconsciousness of the teacher. 

Katharine might then and there have returned his trib- 
ute, ‘‘ Not all the ministers in the world could have given 
me what you have given me.” From that hour dated her 
realization of how certain is the reflex action of giving. 
She did not try to say these things to her friend, but he 
left her with a deepened sense of her sympathy with all 
that was best in him. 

They did not meet again. The end was nearer than 
they thought. Katharine’s next letter to Bruce Downing 
was returned with the word Dead ” written across it. 

“ Robert,” said Katharine, in the long talk with her 
husband that followed this interview with Downing, “are 
there no thoroughly bad men? I do not know what to 
think, or how far to trust my own impressions.” 

“ The prisoners you have met are exceptional, Katie, 
and Mr. McIntyre takes an exceptional position in rela- 
tion to them. Mr. McIntyre acts upon the men like a 
moral chemical which brings to the surface the latent good 
in them. Or rather, his shrewd penetration and insight 
find the hidden good, though he knows the wickedness. 
The men know that he takes them at their best, and they 
trust him ; even the habitual liars mean to be sincere with 
him. His estimate of the men on the whole would be a 
fair one, — he is not a Scotchman for nothing. 

“ You don’t happen to be a Scotchman, Katie. It ’s all 
right for you to believe that the good you find is genuine ; 
only, you may be sure that you can’t judge of the whole 
man by the elements in him which respond to your per- 
sonality. You will have to get outside of your own influence 
in order to see him as he is. 


294 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


** With the guards or with each other the men show a 
very different, but no less real, side. They are looked upon 
as bad men ; they know that, and that of itself creates 
antagonism. Morally, we are all something like the 
chameleon. 

“ Of course it does a man good to talk with you and to 
know that you are ready to believe in him, — it helps him 
to believe in himself and to muster his moral forces ; but 
how those moral forces will hold their own against conflict- 
ing evil, or, as Williams says, * against the devil that is in 
them,’ the vitiating moral atmosphere here, and inevitable 
temptation to come, that ’s the problem. Your friend 
Bruce Downing is not going to give us an answer, for his 
resolves will have no chance to be tested by liberty.” 

“He can’t help us in that way, — no; but I feel that 
he has given me a — ” She paused, arrested by her 
husband’s not altogether encouraging expression. 

“ Don’t tell me that you have found a mission, dear ; 
anything but that,” he protested. 

“ Absurd, is n’t it? ” she reflected, with an amused smile. 
“ But you know I found my mission when I fell in love 
with you.” 

“ And this is one of the results,” he added, with sudden 
seriousness. “ I do pity these friendless men ; I know 
their condition to be wrong. But I doubt its being best 
for you to go on making friends here. This may seem 
ungenerous, but there are men here whom you ought not 
to know. I feel this as your husband.” 

“ I understand,” she admitted thoughtfully ; “ but my 
sense of security would lie in the fact that you are my 
husband, and that you sympathize with the prisoners and 
comprehend my feeling on the subject. And, moreover, 
you don’t think it possible that I could be friends with 
such men as you have in mind, do you? ” 


ONE, OR MANY? 


295 


“ Heaven forbid ! and Heaven forbid too that you should 
ever know the real depths of ignorance and wickedness to 
be found in a prison ! ” Robert answered emphatically. 

All at once Katharine was aware of the possibility that 
Robert might disappoint her. That he should swerve from 
her ideal of him would have hurt her more than to have 
relinquished forever her incipient philanthropy. She had 
not thought that he would ever establish his wish as her 
husband as the final court of appeal in any matter of right 
and wrong ; and if it were right for her to extend sympathy 
or help where she believed it was needed, it would be 
wrong for her to withhold it. She appreciated her hus- 
band’s tenderness for her; but it was she now who was 
influenced by Lord Lovelace’s despised couplet. In her 
heart of hearts she realized that they two could not love 
each other so well, loved they not the right more. 

This feeling was not expressed ; she only said : Robert, 
I want you to tell me something. What is the use of good- 
ness and education if they are to form a barrier between 
those who have them and those who have them not? And 
tell me, dear, do we ever lose by giving? Isn’t it safe for 
us to venture to act on spiritual laws?” 

Katharine, you expect me to answer such searching 
questions with a view to your immediate application. You 
expect me to admit that the conventional word * culture ’ 
means development, morally and intellectually ; and that 
it has small excuse for being, unless it opens highways 
of communication instead of building walls of separation. 
How can I defend my prejudice or my selfishness when 
you make me carry it into the open field of general 
principles?” 

“ Don’t talk of selfishness or prejudice when it ’s only 
your care for me that influences you. But if I could do 
anything for any one here, would n’t it be a comfort to us 


296 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


both ? Since you must be here, it is easier for me to take 
the prison into my life ; it seems to bring me nearer to 
you ; and then — don’t you think it is right? ” 

Right for you to follow the leadings of your own heart ? 
Right for me to trust you to Heaven and your own intui- 
tions ? Surely I need not fear to do that. But you must 
take Mr. McIntyre for your guardian angel, and I know 
you ’ll let me be your father confessor. Every time you 
come here you bring a breath of heaven to me. Why 
should I keep it from others ? ” 


CHAPTER XLVI. 


A LAST EVENING. 

“ And bringing our lives to the level of others, 

Hold the cup we have filled to their uses at last.” 

GUARD paused for a moment at Robert’s cell 
one evening: “You’re to be changed to the 
library to-morrow, Allston,” he said, and passed 
on. 

“I’ve been expecting of something like this. Colonel. 
You ’d never ought to of been in the shoe-shop anyhow.” 
Williams made this remark slowly, with an effort at cheer- 
fulness ; but his heart sank at the prospect of his own 
irreparable loss. 

“ I hate to leave you, old fellow. My wife would like to 
hear from you, and could keep you and me informed about 
each other, if you care to write to her,” suggested Allston. 

“I’d like that better ’n anything, if you don’t object,” 
Williams answered, a gleam of pleasure lighting his eyes. 
“ But there ain’t anything ’ll make up for the lack of your 
society. Colonel.” 

“I think I can arrange to have my papers and maga- 
zines sent in to you.” 

“Yes, that ’ll give me something to think of.” A sense 
of his old loneliness rushed over Williams, and he relapsed 




298 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


into a feeling of dull despair. Oh, I hate this prison ; I 
want to get out of it ! It ’s lowering ; it ’s demoralizing ! ” 
he suddenly exclaimed. 

Knowing that it would do the old man good to talk, 
Allston led him on. You differ from the chaplain, then,” 
he said, referring to the last discourse in chapel. 

‘‘No, I don't differ as to what he said about the benefit 
of a man’s breaking off dissipated habits and forming the 
habit of industry ; and I agree with him that it ’s a good 
thing for a man to have a chance to think, and he gets 
that here. What he said is true as far as it goes ; but that 
it don’t go far enough is proved by the men who come here 
over and over again. I tell you it lowers a man. The 
whole air is infected, first of all with suspicion. Prisoners 
suspect each other, prisoners suspect guards, and guards 
suspect prisoners. Suspicion is a darned blind thing, any- 
how, and it eats into a man like vitri’l. If a man comes 
here honest, nobody believes what he says ; and it ’s easy 
enough living down to what ’s expected of you. If a man 
undertakes to live honest and self-respecting in here, he ’s 
got to keep a steady eye and row hard against the stream. 
Still, if he keeps on long enough, he does get a kind of 
character. I know Mr. McIntyre would take my word 
any time ; but he knows me, and he ’s an honest man 
himself.” 

“ You think if it takes a thief to catch a thief, it takes an 
honest man to know an honest man.” 

“ Ondoubtedly. An honest man will feel another man’s 
honesty when he can’t put his finger on it ; but your real 
underhanded man don’t believe in anybody. Now, I don’t 
ask the prison authorities to show me any favor, but I want 
to be taken for the honest man I am.” 

“ You mean you wish only for justice. But have n’t you 
learned that simple justice is far more rare than mercy? 


A LAST EVENING. 


299 


We should take a long step towards the Millennium if the 
keys of our prisons were placed in the hands of Justice.” 

“ I suppose you think Justice would keep me behind the 
bars,” said Williams abruptly, making a personal application 
of the theory. 

“ You have asked me that question several times in one 
form or another. I am not going to answer it. But I am 
going to ask you if you think the life you have lived entitles 
you to liberty ; if the bitter feeling you express towards this 
world will secure you a home in the heaven in which you 
seem to believe ? Are you the kind of person that saints 
and angels will rush to receive with open arms ; or if they 
turn their backs upon you, do you expect to avenge the 
insult as you claim you have a right to do?” 

“ Fire away. Colonel ! ” replied the target with a grim 
smile. 

Before you anticipate heaven, you had better get rid of 
your revengeful and bloodthirsty spirit. You happen to 
like me, and you treat me well ; but how did your last cell- 
mate fare at your hands ? I’m not given to preaching, 
you know that ; but I am willing to take my stand on the 
Lord’s Prayer. It ’s simple, it ’s fair, it ’s manly ; it makes no 
appeal for mercy; it relies on Justice vfhtxi it says, ^Forgive 
me as I forgive others.’ Now, do you expect to approach 
the Throne of Grace as a beggar crying for mercy, as a 
brigand demanding plunder, or as a man saying, ^ I have 
forgiven others ; let me be forgiven’?” 

‘‘ That ’s a new idea of religion to me ; it sounds solid. 
I believe I ’ll think it over. Is it original, Colonel? ” 

^‘You will find it in your Bible, in the Sermon on the 
Mount, where there are some other teachings which it 
might be worth your while to think over. It will stand 
comparison with Socrates. Williams,” resumed Allston 
after a pause, and with deepening color, ‘‘ I am under an 


300 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


obligation to a woman whom I have injured beyond all 
hope of reparation, — the mother of the man that I killed. 
If her course can help you to understand Christian forgive- 
ness, — well, I owe it to her to impart her blessed influence 
wherever it may help any one. You will understand that 
it is not easy for me to speak of this ; but it does not belong 
to me alone, it belongs to Christianity.” 

He did not go into details, but he pictured simply and 
clearly the spirit in which Mrs. Irvington had met Katharine, 
and in some way bestowed a blessing which Heaven itself 
had withheld. 

The older man listened with grave attention ; then quietly 
asked : — 

And this woman is a Christian ? ” 

Yes.” 

“ And a praying Methodist?” 

^‘Yes.” 

After an interval of silence Williams looked up. 

“ Colonel,” said he, “ I believe I have been mistaken 
about some things. I ’ll wait a while before I send for the 
heathen missionaries. Perhaps I can think some of these 
things out by myself” 

The man’s mood had wholly changed. The anger had 
spent itself, and during the rest of the evening he showed 
more gentleness of nature than Allston had ever seen in 
him. 

The two men talked long and earnestly together. Robert 
tried to express his genuine sympathy for his cell-mate, 
deepened as it was by the realization that henceforth Wil- 
liams might be without sympathy to the end of his life. 

Sympathy ! We speak the word lightly ; but it has more 
meaning between man and man, between woman and 
woman, than any word in the language. It is the secret 
of all influence that is good and lasting. 


CHAPTER XLVII. 


THE CIRCLE WIDENS. 

“Not less to-day rare souls there are who live 
In touch with all things just and pure and true, 

Sweet love their gracious and abiding guest, 

Who from their own white heights grudge not to give 
The sinner and the publican their due, 

Nor care to judge mankind but at its best.” 

has a way of opening before us in one direc- 
u. Once assured of her husband’s consent 
the extension of her acquaintance among 
s convicts, Katharine Allston herself could 
not have told how it came to be an understood thing that 
she was interested in them. The prisoners knew it ; the 
warden knew it, and gave her the privilege of spending a 
Sunday at the prison twice a year. 

Occasionally some unknown prisoner wrote to her, 
occasionally a face in the hospital attracted her; but it 
was mainly through Mr. McIntyre that she made new 
friends. Sometimes it would be some one not out of the 
boundaries of boyhood, sometimes a broken-down old man, 
for whom her sympathies were enlisted, usually one utterly 
friendless and forgotten. Once it happened that she asked 
for a man who had been in prison for twelve years, with 




302 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


never a letter or a friend coming to him from the outside. 
The man could not believe that he had been sent for. 

It is a mistake,” he said ; there is no one in the 
world who could ask to see me.” 

He had long ago ceased to hope or to expect anything. 
Sent to prison for life at twenty for a single unpremeditated 
crime, the overwhelming misery of his own fate had para- 
lyzed moral consciousness, and precluded the possibility of 
natural remorse. 

Another older man, one of a sensitive, poetical, and 
religious temperament, who had taken a life under tem- 
porary derangement, was a prey to most terrible remorse. 
He also was under sentence for life. 

In response to Mrs. xMlston’s sympathy he opened his 
heart and confided to her : — 

“ All these ten years my crime has been growing stronger 
before me. Once I hoped I had been forgiven ; but now 
the light has gone out. I have no hope for this world or 
hereafter. But I dare not try to forget ; it is not right that 
I should forget.” 

The man was a German, his face the face of a poet, 
and the letters that he afterwards wrote Mrs. Allston 
were like transcriptions from the prophets of the Jewish 
dispensation. 

After these men had once met Mrs. Allston they no 
longer felt that they were absolutely friendless ; but the 
web of their destiny was too hopelessly entangled ever to 
be unravelled in this world. 

It was not enough for Katharine simply to enter into the 
sorrows of others, she longed to open channels for practi- 
cal relief. To understand an evil was to wish to counteract 
it ; to know of a sorrow was to seek to alleviate it. How 
she studied the problem of these wretched lives, and 
how resolutely she set herself to find an opening to let in 


THE CIRCLE WIDENS. 


303 


some ray of hope or faith ! She learned to bum her own 
smoke very effectually in those days; and had he but 
known it, it was this very prison experience of Katharine’s 
which was the secret in after years of the unquenchable 
sunshine in Robert Allston’s home, — the sunshine that 
turned the children’s tears to smiles, and evaporated an- 
noyances out of existence. 

During one of her talks with her Scotch friend, Katha- 
rine questioned impetuously : “You have given me so 
much to feel ; can’t you give me something to do ? What 
is the use of my sympathy unless I can make things 
better for some of these people? I should think they 
would despise me with my empty words,” she concluded 
emphatically. 

Mr. McIntyre regarded her for a moment with his 
kindly penetrating glance, well understanding her sense of 
helplessness under the burden of wrong with which her 
heart was laden. The intense earnestness of her expres- 
sion served only to accent her girlish grace and youthful 
delicacy; and the old Scotchman’s chivalrous impulse 
was to save her from herself. 

“ Perhaps you would like me to chloroform the guards 
and hand the keys of the prison over to you some night, 
so that you could let all these fellows out,” he said with a 
dry smile. 

“ No, don’t tempt me ; for there ’s no knowing what I 
might not do,” Katharine replied, with an answering smile. 

“ Don’t be too sure that your words are empty. Sym- 
pathy is a real thing, and meets a real want,” said Mr. 
McIntyre, recurring to her previous remark. “You are 
going through your initiation now ; you will see your way 
to something practical in time.” 

But it happened that Katharine did not at first recognize 
an opportunity when it came in her way. 


20 


304 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


During the same visit to the prison, while spending an 
hour in the hospital, she drifted into conversation with a 
man who was distracted with anxiety for his little daughter, 
a child of eight, who had been sent to a poor-house on the 
death of her mother. 

know that I can’t get well, and I don’t care for my- 
self, — I’m tired enough of life ; but I can’t die easy on 
account of Dorette. I’ve looked forward to making a 
home for her after I got out. I ’ve shirked every other 
duty in life, but I did n’t mean to shirk that. It seems 
hard that a fellow can’t do a decent thing when he wants 
to; but that hand’ll never do another stroke of work,” 
he said to Katharine, lifting up a thin white hand that 
looked as if it never had done much work. ‘‘ But to leave 
that little thing, my little Dorette, in the poor-house, — 
it ’s a sin and a shame,” he added, in dull, despairing 
anger. 

“ Perhaps I can find a better place than the poor-house 
for your little girl,” Katharine answered gently, the strong 
mother-feeling in her own heart stirred by the thought of 
this orphan. 

Oh, take her yourself, Miss Allston ! ” entreated the man 
with sudden desperate courage. She is a good little 
thing, and so honest; it made me feel ashamed when I 
lied to her. She ’s her mother right over again, and I ’d 
rather see her dead than think she marry a thief. My 
wife was a school-teacher in Ohio, smart and spry; her 
folks died of cholera in ’54, and she ’d had to look out for 
herself. We boarded together one winter. I was a thief 
then, but she didn’t know it, and was innocent enough to 
take a fancy to me. I thought I ’d quit stealing when I 
had her for a wife ; but liking for a woman don’t make a 
man over. When the baby came, we named her for my 
mother, Dorette. Oh, Miss Allston, for her mother’s sake. 


THE CIRCLE WIDENS. 


305 

and my mother’s sake, for the Lord’s sake, if you are a 
Christian, take my little Dorette ! ” 

“ I can’t promise you that I will take her myself,” said 
Katharine, shrinking from such a step in the dark ; but 
I do promise you that I will go to her and see that she is 
cared for, and that I will be her friend as long as she 
needs me. She shall not be left in the poor-house.” 

A look of inexpressible relief came into the man’s face. 

Now I can die easy. Miss Allston,” he panted, exhausted 
with the effort of throwing his whole strength into one last 
attempt to save his child. 

Katharine, sitting at the man’s beside, wrote a letter for 
the father to the child ; and his dying message was that she 
should forget him and remember her mother, and love the 
lady who was coming to her. 

Dorette Amberg proved to be a picturesque and winning 
little creature. ‘‘This is mama,” she said to Katharine, 
opening a locket that she wore outside her calico dress; 
and as she looked at the picture, Katharine saw the face 
of the child, matured, indeed, but with the same pathetic 
acquaintance with grief suggested by the eyes. 

Not knowing what disposition to make of Dorette, Kath- 
arine took her to her own home temporarily. Mrs. Ken- 
nard’s heart opened to the brown-eyed little waif. “ She 
must be properly dressed, Katharine. I ’m going right to 
Miss Coombs to see if she can’t come to-morrow. The 
child must have a complete wardrobe of suitable, pretty 
things before we talk of disposing of her.” 

The autocrat of the household having made this an- 
nouncement, a process of transformation was begun ; and 
with the disappearance of the dingy calico dresses the shy 
constraint of the child wore off. 

The day never came when there was any talk of dis- 
posing of Dorette. The child had remained on a sort of 


3o6 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


probation for nearly a month, when one day she clasped 
her arms around Mrs. Kennard’s neck, and whispered : 
“Won’t you keep me for your little girl always?” 

“ Always ? ” repeated Mrs. Kennard, thus suddenly con- 
fronted with the destiny of the child ; and while the little 
girl waited, Mrs. Kennard glanced into her own heart, and 
relieved to find the answer there, she continued, “Yes, 
always, if you are good, Dorette.” 

And Dorette knew how to be good. In the passionate 
desire to save her darling from the corruption of the father’s 
nature, the mother had done everything in her power to 
develop the child’s moral character and to strengthen her 
inward monitor. With a desperate fear of inherited ten- 
dencies she had determined that the child’s conscience 
should be on the alert ; and Dorette had been trained in 
obedience and in an unswerving directness of statement 
which occasionally embarrassed the more conciliatory Mrs. 
Kennard. 

As the little girl felt more and more at home, she grew 
into the hearts of all the household. It was Mrs. Kennard 
who dressed Dorette’s dolls in apparel so gorgeous as almost 
to overawe the little mother ; it was the Doctor who taught 
Dorette to drive, and took her on many a round of after- 
noon visits ; it was Mrs. Irvington who asked that the child 
might come to her for lessons in the mornings until she 
was prepared for school-life : but it was Auntie Katharine 
who was her refuge when anything went wrong, who nursed 
her through all her illnesses, and contrived to make the 
seasons of convalescence periods of unalloyed enjoyment, 
and who always put the little girl to bed, closing her day 
with some enchanting story from the realm of fairyland 
or childhood. 

On the other hand, it was Dorette who supplied in Dr. 
Kennard’s home that element of childhood without which 


THE CIRCLE WIDENS. 


307 


no home is complete. Dolls, prim or piquant, according 
to the mood of their little mother, appeared on the piazza, 
in the hall, or on the stairs, — wherever Dorette had last 
been, — and were welcome wherever found; for neither 
Katharine nor Mrs. Kennard had outgrown their early 
fondness for these children in miniature. 

The quaint old story-books preserved from Mrs. Ken- 
nard’s childhood were brought out for Dorette’s entertain- 
ment ; but their stilted charms weakened before the more 
modern productions of “ Aunt Fanny ” and Miss Yonge. 
When Mrs. Kennard heard Dorette at the piano practising 
the little pieces that Katharine had first played, she almost 
felt that she had her own little Kathie back again, — Kathie 
with a golden future. 

And so it happened that before a year had passed, 
Katharine wrote to Robert : — 

“ I don’t know how we ever lived without Dorette, — she is 
indispensable to us all now; and only think, dear, when you 
come home to carry me away, that vacant place in the home 
which it hurt me to think of, will not be vacant, Dorette 
adores mamma, and she gives no sign of developing what 
mamma calls my independent views of action. 

“At present, Dorette rather regards me as the necessity, 
and mamma as the luxury of life ; but I ’m going to form her 
on Mr. Field’s idea of dispensing with necessaries as long as 
she can command luxuries.” 

But to none of those who were reclaiming Dorette’s life 
from a desert to a garden did the child give a richer re- 
turn than to Mrs. Irvington, whose silent house seemed 
another place during the morning invasions of the child. 
Dorette’s ideas of life were taking on new hues under Mrs. 
Kennard’s influence. Flowers must be kept in Mrs. Irving- 
ton’s little parlor now, and Dorette brought daily offerings 


308 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


for the vases \ and in answer to flowers in the parlor, cook- 
ies blossomed in the quiet little kitchen. 

In the recreation hours Mrs. Irvington lived over again 
her own almost forgotten childhood, and the sadder reali- 
ties of her married life gave way, for the time, to the revival 
of the happier early days. 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 


A MISTAKEN VOCATION. 



HE change from the shoe-shop to the library 
seemed a step towards freedom when Allston 
first entered upon his new duties. The work 
was congenial, and the rigid restraint neces- 
sary in the shops was relaxed, and there was more freedom 
of intercourse with other men. 

Mr. McIntyre, when off duty, habitually browsed among 
the books. The chaplain frequently came in to write let- 
ters or to read ; and occasionally a convalescing invalid from 
the hospital was allowed a half day in the library. 

Allston was surprised to find what a high average was 
maintained in the books selected by the convicts ; often 
the best lists were sent in by men considered most de- 
praved. It was a not unusual manifestation of inconsist- 
ency between the intellectual and the outward life of man. 

One serious drawback to Allston’s comfort in this new 
position awaited him in the person of his associate-librarian 
and cell-mate. The days were harassed and the evenings 
tormented by this fawning, egotistical liar, with his cease- 
less, intrusive talk. All gentlemanly defensive weapons 
failed to penetrate the rind of his egotism, and no cold- 
ness of manner chilled the flow of his shallow and vulgar 
chatter. 



310 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


At first Allston studied this Frank Carson with some 
interest, as furnishing at least a new specimen of humanity ; 
more than once he dropped an experimentary plummet into 
the man’s immoral nature, expecting to find solid bottom 
somewhere, — but in vain. The plainest distinctions of 
right and wrong seemed blotted from his vision, self-in- 
terest the only motive recognizable ; and what made him 
intolerable beyond all else was his profession of being 
religious. “ I ’m a believer ; I always was, — I was brought 
up to be one ; and my religion carries me through every- 
thing,” was his daily assertion ; and he certainly appeared 
to have been “ through everything,” whatever it was that 
carried him. 

Carson himself did not seem half so impatient for the 
day of his release as Allston soon became ; but the con- 
nection of the two was abruptly severed one morning when 
Carson was detected in a dishonorable use of his privileges 
in the library, and was summarily sent to work in one of 
the shops. 

For several days Carson’s vacant place was left unfilled ; 
and Allston’s nerves, rasped almost beyond endurance by 
constant friction, were soothed by the welcome solitude of 
his cell at night, and the quiet of the library by day. 

However, the interval was brief. Before the expiration 
of the week the victim of an accident hobbled over from 
the hospital with the aid of a crutch, and commenced light 
work in the library. Ray Bloomer was the cognomen 
under which this young man’s history was hidden and his 
personality veiled. This personality was peculiar : it was 
thin and wiry in general construction, and so blond as to 
convey the impression of having been bleached ; his eyes 
were sharp and alert, his movements full of nervous energy, 
although enfeebled by severe pain and illness. Coming 
from the ranks of professional criminals, he was familiar 


A MISTAKEN VOCATION 


3II 

with all the evil known to them. His prison experiences 
had been hard enough to break down a man of less strong 
vitality ; he was not yet discharged from the hospital, and 
took his meals and spent his nights there. 

Intercourse between Allston and his assistant being 
limited to wprking hours, their acquaintance developed 
slowly. 

Bloomer attended closely to his work, and seemed dis- 
inclined to talk. Allston observed that he dived eagerly 
into some book, and was instantly engrossed in its con- 
tents whenever leisure would allow; and further observa- 
tion ascertained that the magnetic charm lay in books of 
travel. 

‘‘What interests you so in Europe? ” Allston asked one 
day. 

“ I like to get out of the prison on general principles,” 
was the reply, made without looking up from his book. 

“ Are you studying European cities with a view to future 
burglarious raids?” pursued Allston, unhesitatingly refer- 
ring to the young man’s well-known career. 

“Naw; I’m done with that.” The answer was given 
with emphatic disgust. “ The risk and anxiety wears on a 
man, and wages ain’t regular.” 

He reflected a moment, then studied Allston’s face with 
sudden interest, as if he had never seen it before. The 
inference drawn from this study was satisfactory, as was 
evinced in an unexpected opening of confidence when he 
continued ; — 

“ I ’ve been an unlucky thief, and the reason was, my 
heart was n’t in the business. I don’t b’lieve Nature meant 
me for a thief ; there ’s better stuff in me. You see I ’d 
a natural knack of understanding how the houses was con- 
structed, and I got up a reputation among regular burglars 
for that when I was only a kid. The fellows treated me 


312 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


well enough, and I kept in with them. But I see now 
that I made a mistake in my calling. I ’m going to be an 
architect. ‘ That ’s what ’s the matter.’ I ’ve got a lot of 
the famous buildings of the world right in my eye through 
reading about ’em. I expect I ’ve got a hard row to hoe 
before I get a start ; but it won’t be any harder than the 
row I ’ve left behind me.” 

Inclined to follow up this leading, AUston continued; 
‘‘ What was your father? ” 

“ A builder, and a bully one.” 

Good. Where is he now ? ” 

Where are all the dead?” 

Not prepared with an answer to that misty problem, All- 
ston pursued his inquiries : And your mother? ” 

“ She ’s there too.” 

Who brought you up ? ” 

“ I ran away from an orphan asylum and brought myself 
up, — and a darned pretty job I made of it,” he concluded 
with a shrug. 

“ How do you expect to become an architect?” 

“ I can’t tell exactly, but I ’m going to be one. First 
I ’m going to work at building for a while, to get some 
money and practical experience. I ’m young yet, only 
twenty ; an’ a fellow can get on in ten years if he looks 
straight at one thing. Ray Bloomer ’ll never be heard of 
outside this prison. I ’ll go to a new place, and take my 
own name, and be a credit to it yet. It ’s a big piece of 
luck for me to be in this library.” 

What followed was a foregone conclusion. When All* 
ston offered to become Ray’s teacher, to supply him with 
books and materials for drawing and draughting, the boy 
colored, choked, and burst into tears. 

‘‘ D — n me ! ” he exclaimed, ashamed of his weakness. 


A MISTAKEN VOCATION 


313 


Look here, Ray ! ” said Allston, with a ring of the 
colonel in his voice, “you don’t damn any one if you 
are going to study with me.” 

“ You ’re going to make me hoist the moral colors for 
the credit of our profession? Very well; and if I attempt 
to haul down that flag, shoot me on the spot.” 

For two years Ray Bloomer studied under the direction 
of his unwearying teacher, and proved an apt and enthusi- 
astic pupil. At the expiration of his sentence he went 
to Milwaukee an accurate and skilled draughtsman, well 
grounded in the principles of architecture, and with his nat- 
ural artistic instincts carefully trained. 

Bloomer having shared Allston ’s cell after his dis- 
charge from the hospital, the intercourse between the 
two men ripened into closer intimacy, and the younger 
man acquired something of his cell-mate’s courtesy of 
manner; he also adopted many of Allston’s principles 
of action as his receptive mind recognized their bearing 
on life. 

“ Is n’t it odd. Colonel,” Bloomer said one evening near 
the end of his imprisonment, “ that the best stroke of luck 
I ever had in my life was breaking my leg, — or to go still 
farther back, getting arrested and being sent to prison? 
That supplied me with first-class private instruction, a new 
code of morals, good society, with board and lodging thrown 
in. Perhaps my early mistake as to my calling was only a 
longer road to a higher success. Shall I write a tract en- 
titled, ‘ The Penitentiary as a Moral and Business Training- 
School ’ ? It ’s a pity it could n’t be made that, any way ; 
for plenty of young fellows in here would be glad enough to 
get such help as you Ve given me. We ’re not such a bad 
lot, if we only knew how to be better. But it takes a 
man like you to straighten us out ; and men like you never 


314 


HIS BROKEN SWORD, 


ought to see the inside of a place like this. No matter 
what it ’s been to me, it ’s awful hard luck on a man like 
you.” 

“ It is hard luck,” answered Allston ; “ but I tell you, Ray, 
there is a grain of consolation in believing that my ill wind 
has blown some good to you, — and it 's one of the things 
that comforts my wife.” 


CHAPTER XLIX. 


RELEASED. 

*' Now my voyage is wellnigh over, 

And my stanchest spars are gone ; 

And my sails are at rest, and my barnacled barque 
Drags slowly and heavily on. 

“ The faint breeze comes from the distant shore, 

With its odors dim and sweet, 

And soon in the silent harbor of peace 
Long-parted friends I shall greet.” 

N’S removal to the library, an undisguised 
ng to one convict, bore very different re- 
in another direction. Williams was not 
. another cell-mate. A dismal loneliness 
settled over the old man ; he pined for the companionship 
of the steadfast nature upon which his restless, stormy heart 
had anchored. His old longing for the mountains assailed 
him. Do what he would to forget them, their peaceful 
heights wooed his imagination through the weary hours of 
work, and in his dreams he heard the whispers of the wind 
and the calling of distant birds in clear space 

The fiercer fires in his nature were deadened embers ; 
he was only miserably heartsick and homesick. Books and 
papers ceased to interest him. In vain he fixed his eyes 
on a page ; the words were blurred by memories, the 



LLSTO 

blessi 

suits 

eiven 



HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


316 

voices of the past sounded louder than war-cries of the 
present. 

Weeks drifted into months, autumn and winter passed, 
and spring melted into summer; he scarcely noted the 
changes of season, except that in June the days seemed 
endlessly long. The daily task of work became more and 
more of a burden; the hands which had moved quickly 
and skilfully grew heavy and clumsy ; attention flagged ; 
the mind was weary as the body. 

There came a day when he failed to do the work re- 
quired ; the next day it was the same. He was then sent 
to the “ Solitary,” and kept on bread and water. He was 
conscious of gnawing hunger, and of a throbbing pain in 
his head ; but even pain was dulled by utter weariness. 

He seemed to have been in the “ Solitary ” for a month, so 
indistinct had the realization of the present become ; but 
only thirty-six hours had passed before he was again ordered 
back to work. It was evident enough now that he could 
not work ; not only the feeble movements, but the relaxed 
muscles of the face and the pitifully dulled and wavering 
eyes made manifest the loss of power. Powders from the 
doctor were given him, and he was sent to one of the cells 
reserved for the sick. His writing-day came on the Sunday 
of that week, and he wanted to answer Mrs. Allston’s letter ; 
but his hand trembled, and the light was dim. He could 
not see the lines on the paper or read the words that he 
wrote, and he would be ashamed to send her anything 
that he could not himself read. He overheard one of the 
guards remark : “ I guess the old man ’s broken down.” 
He understood who was meant, and wondered that it 
seemed of so little matter to him. 

After a period of complete rest he was conscious of a 
slight return of energy. Time hung heavy, and it was 
a relief when he was assigned light work about the cell- 


RELEASED. 


317 


house. After a time he was vaguely aware of a loss of 
perception : occasionally thoughts would be clear, and per- 
sons remembered in their proper relations ; but more often 
there appeared to be some cloud over his mind. That 
young Colonel Allston seemed a friend of long ago, — not 
wearing the convict dress, but in a dark blue uniform with- 
out brass buttons. His dreams were very vivid, and some- 
times became confused with memories. He could not 
quite assure himself whether it was a dream or a memory, 
that evening when Violetta and Colonel Allston were stand- 
ing together on the top of the mountain, so clear against 
the pale gold sky ; and when he called them they went 
down on the other side. 

When Mr. McIntyre came into the cell-house and spoke 
in his cheery, cordial fashion, his voice seemed to set things 
right. It was easy enough then to remember that the 
Colonel was in the library, and that every day he sent a 
friendly message to his old cell-mate through Mr. McIntyre. 

For some time the message sent in return was : “ Tell 
the Colonel I ’m all right, and like this easy job in the cell- 
house ; ” but later the messages changed. One day it was : 

Give the boy my love, and tell him I ’d like to see him ; ” 
and again : “ Ask him to take good care of Violetta, and 
have him tell her I keep her in remembrance the same as 
always ; ” and yet again : “Tell him I ’m going to start for 
the Rockies to-morrow, and I ’ll meet him somewhere on 
the mountains.” 

At that time he had grown very restless and irritable. 
He did not like to do his work ; he did not like to have 
his thoughts called back from the mountains. One day he 
was scrubbing stairs ; his hand was unsteady, and he won- 
dered where all the water came from. Water seemed to 
be rising all around him. He stood up to look, his foot 
slipped, and then followed a great blank. 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


318 

It was weeks afterwards, when one June Sunday morning 
consciousness returned. His eyes were closed ; but he felt 
the touch of a woman’s hand, and he murmured “ Violetta.” 
The eyelids seemed so heavy, as if he never could lift them ; 
but after a time he did raise them. 

At first his vision was dim ; but as it grew more distinct 
he whispered : I know your face ; you ’re the picture the 
Colonel had, — a sweet picture.” 

Then he lay quite still, with his eyes open, apparently 
trying to think. “ Miss Allston,” he said, — she could 
barely catch the feeble, broken words, — ‘‘I used to think 
when any one injured me, it was my right to injure him. 
I think different now, — owing to the Colonel. I used to 
want the mountains, — but in the Eternal City — there is 
peace ; — and Violetta is there, — and where my treasure 
is — there will my — heart be.” 

The eyes had closed again while he was speaking; the 
hand which had grasped Katharine’s relaxed its hold ; a 
shadow fell upon the face, a slight vibration passed over 
the form. The Angel of Light silently turned the keys, 
the gates were opened, the imprisoned soul was free. 

The heroic mould of the head and face was strikingly 
evident as the calm majesty of death asserted itself. The 
look of infinite repose seemed a reflection of the Peace of 
the Eternal City. 

“ I shall have no more fears,” thought Katharine Allston. 
She turned away, thrilled with the unfathomable mystery 
of death, which had fallen like a benediction over this 
worn-out life. 


CHAPTER L. 


ROWING AGAINST THE TIDE. 



FTER the first half of Allston’s term of im- 
prisonment had passed, from time to time Mr. 
Dempster agitated the subject of a pardon. 
Robert was firm in his refusal to have any 
effort made towards that result, and the lawyer regarded 
this determination as highly Quixotic. But Robert had 
considered the subject on all sides, and could reach but 
one conclusion, — unless he lost his health, or some misfor- 
tune befell Katharine, he wished to serve out his sentence. 

It was hardest to resist Katharine’s tender arguments. 

“ Don’t urge me to act against my real convictions and 
sense of right,” he said to his wife, whose presence made 
all else seem nothing in comparison. “ I want your help 
against yourself, darling,” he added. “Now try to look at 
the matter as I do. My sentence is just ; and if I were a 
poor man whose family needed me for daily support, there 
would be no chance of my release. It ’s only social posi- 
tion and influence — the very powers in life which should 
have prevented my breaking the law (the law, human and 
divine, dear), — it is only those violated blessings that give 
me an advantage over poor fellows far more innocent or 
ignorant than I, and far more in need of liberty. If I were 
the Governor I would not grant any such petition ; how, 


21 


320 


HIS BROKEN SWORD, 


with self-respect, could I ask it? I can’t do it. I have 
placed myself on a level with other prisoners, and I must 
stand by our common manhood.” 

“ You are right, you are always right ! I am so proud of 
you, Robert,” answered Katharine, her sympathy kindling 
into passionate admiration ; and the tears that had gathered 
on her lashes sparkled with light as she looked into her 
husband’s face. 

‘‘Oh, don’t make a hero of me ! ” said Robert, with a 
sudden change of tone. “ You forget — there ’s another rea- 
son ; ” he flushed deeply, and spoke with eflbrt. “ I used to 
think the old idea of expiation was the horrible product of 
a pitiless, crude religion \ but, Katie, it is something that 
lives in our souls ; it is there, and we can’t escape it. If it 
be possible, I want to expiate my sin.” His voice had low- 
ered to a whisper, and his eyes were averted. It was the 
first time he had alluded to that secret feeling, even to 
Katharine. 

“ To think that there is one place in your heart that even 
my love can’t reach and comfort, Robert ! It is too 
hard ! But we will try to bear anything that may bring you 
peace in the end. And surely peace will come.” 

Away from her husband, Katharine had been living in 
lofty and radiant air-castles since her last talk with Mr. 
Dempster ; but in Robert’s presence, and looking through 
his eyes, her visions faded, and she resigned all hope of 
changing a spiritual reality through altered conditions. 

Bear it as they might, both felt that their sorrow lived in 
something deeper than circumstances, — the prison and the 
separation. But for all this resolution, held so firmly when 
put to the test, Robert’s longing for liberty grew with 
every month of imprisonment. At times it was projected 
above everything else, — a want as imperative as thirst in a 
desert ; and more than once, when his writing-day came. 


ROWING AGAINST THE TIDE. 


321 


the man wrestled with the powerful temptation to open the 
way for Mr. Dempster to do as he wished. He half envied 
the men who had no possible chance of pardon. 

He suffered no illness, but the robust vigor of his youth 
had succumbed to the confinement ; the hard labor in the 
shoe-shop had diminished his power and robbed him for- 
ever of his erect, military bearing ; the fountain of sponta- 
neous cheerfulness, which had been one of his fortunate 
natural gifts, seemed exhausted. He applied to himself 
the popular prison maxim, Take one day at a time ; ” but 
often the burden of the hundreds of days that had passed, 
and the hundreds of days still dividing him from liberty, 
would unite to overwhelm his philosophy. 

Looking aside from his own life did not conduce to 
cheerfulness. So closely had he identified himself with the 
great body of humanity shut up in that prison that in a 
measure he suffered with the whole body, — as every gen- 
erous-hearted prisoner must, until long confinement has 
dulled all perception outside the kingdom of self. 

But side by side with this bond of brotherhood existed 
the desire to escape from it, to shake himself free from the 
dreadful association. Sometimes he wondered if the whole 
scheme of imprisonment for crime were not a great blunder 
of the race. It was only the arbitrary, nominal distinction 
between sin and crime that had set these men apart from 
other men. 

In distributing the books, he had learned much of the 
character of individual prisoners, and was reaching the con- 
clusion that their nature was off the same piece with the 
human nature of the world at large. In many instances he 
traced in these men and their failures the reverse side of 
qualities which in other men had won success, — the same 
reckless daring which had amassed the fortune of many a 
speculator ; the same ruling spirit of greed which, checked 


322 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


within the limits of the law, grinding the poor instead of 
stealing from the rich, might masquerade unmolested be- 
neath the broadcloth of a church deacon. One of the most 
depraved men in the prison reminded him vividly and pain- 
fully of Irvington. And the gentle, feminine element so 
attractive in some men, he found in the prisoner as the very 
unguarded avenue through which temptation had entered ; 
even the weak and shallow men who had fallen a prey to 
their own vanity or extravagance, were but the unlucky 
counterparts of the vain and shallow fops of society. 

They are men like other men, on a lower plane, and 
at an immense disadvantage from birth, — even those who 
are neither cranks nor feeble-minded, as so many of them 
are ; probably a quarter of them are here only because they 
got entangled in the miserable meshes of the chicanery of 
criminal courts. I doubt if it would be the worse for the 
country if its prisons were levelled, the insane and feeble- 
minded inmates sent to asylums, where they belong, and 
the untamable desperadoes sent to their graves. Do you 
agree with me, Mr. McIntyre ? or have I fallen so low in 
the prison as to have lost all respect for law and order, and 
all sense of what is due to the good community on the out- 
side?” said Allston to the Scotchman one day, seeking an 
outlet for his own turbulent feelings in the open sympathy 
with which the old man usually greeted his opinions. 

You ’re getting terribly radical. Colonel.” Mr. Mc- 
Intyre had adopted Williams’s fashion of addressing Allston 
by his military title. “ But it ’s a fact that our prisons prac- 
tise a process of moral extermination ; and what these poor 
fellows need is the training and development of the good 
there is in them, and the instilling of good not in them. 
This rigidly enforced obedience to arbitrary rule don’t 
teach a man to stand on his feet, or qualify him to resist 
the pressure of temptation, which will attack him as surely 


ROWING AGAINST THE TIDE. 


323 


as death will claim him. Discipline means something more 
than iron rule ; and if a man’s spirit is once fairly broken, 
he may answer as a convict, but he ’s of no account as 
a man.” 

Thus did the Scotchman, from a prison officer’s stand- 
point, discourage the radicalism of a convict’s views. 


CHAPTER LI. 


SUBSTITUTION. 

“ True freedom is to share 
All the chains our brothers wear.” 

Y BLOOMER’S successor in the library was 
not an enlivening companion. He was an old 
man by the name of Hawkins, whose stout fig- 
ure and seamless face afforded an almost gro- 
tesque contrast to his state of mind, which was one of 
unmitigated and unchanging gloom. Whenever he laid 
aside his habitual reticence, it was only to open a well of 
sorrows that wearied his cell-mate, although with every 
repetition the dull misery of his fate was borne deeper in 
upon Allston’s consciousness. 

Before the two men had been together for a year, Allston 
was possessed of the story of Hawkins’s life in all its 
wretched details. He fell into the habit of turning it over 
in his mind, and of looking at the situation from his cell- 
mate’s different points of view. The great misfortune 
which had fallen upon him late in life had bewildered the 
older man, who alternately pitied and condemned himself. 

At first condemnation was strongest in Allston’s mind ; 
but gradually pity became dominant as Hawkins visibly 



SUBSTITUTIOAT, 


325 


succumbed to his condition and daily lost courage to look 
forward to anything beyond the prison. At every evidence 
of sympathy on Allston’s part Hawkins piled the weight of 
his sorrows upon the younger man’s shoulders, until the 
burden became almost intolerable, and an additional temp- 
tation in the direction of seeking an avenue of escape into 
liberty. 

This temptation had never so nearly overpowered Robert 
as one Sunday when he wrote to his wife. He had been 
thinking of Katharine for an hour, realizing his increasing 
need of her companionship. Her buoyancy, her elasticity 
and enthusiasm, were like a balsamic atmosphere to his spirit, 
at once a balm and a tonic. He was homesick for the 
sound of her voice, for the touch of her hand, for her 
bright and gentle presence; homesick for that fair ideal 
life with her which always lay pictured in his heart. Life 
was so short ; but the two remaining years of his impris- 
onment seemed interminable ! And how different, how 
precious they might be, spent with her, if he should send 
but one line to Mr. Dempster. And what but a morbid 
fancy, an outgrowth of the prison, held him from writing 
that line? 

With wavering decision he took up his pencil and be- 
gan, My dearest Katharine — ” He paused, dropped 
his pencil, covered his eyes with his hands, and thought 
desperately. 

When he raised his head there was a pained, irresolute 
look in his eyes. His glance fell upon Hawkins, who was 
reading a letter from home. The old man’s round, smooth 
cheeks were wet ; a big tear had splashed and blotted the 
page over which he bent ; his quivering lips half formed the 
words he was reading. 

Allston’s expression changed as he watched his cell-mate ; 
the round old face, with its look of pathetic, helpless, almost 


326 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


boyish misery reminded him of Prince Bulbo. And how 
vividly through all the intervening years came back to him 
the recollection of the evening when his father first read 
“ The Rose and the Ring ” aloud to him, a little boy. His 
father, — what a good man he was ; how brave and true in 
spirit ! Never before had the character of his father stood 
out before him so clear-cut and strong ; he too had endured 
the trial of separation from a dearly loved wife, the stern sep- 
aration of death, burying his own sorrow, and making the 
life of his child full of interest and .delight. 

Again Robert covered his eyes with his hands, and was 
lost in reflection ; but the mists of his own longing and 
temptation had scattered. 

When once more he looked at his cell-mate, Hawkins 
was writing, his mouth twisting as his pen moved through 
the words, and glazed lines ran down his cheeks. 

Allston took up his pencil and looked at My dearest 
Katharine.” He felt now as if those words had been writ- 
ten by some one else. Every trace of indecision had 
passed from his face, and the pencil moved firmly and rap- 
idly as the letter proceeded : — 

“ Do you remember my cell-mate ? I think you have seen 
him in the library. He looks like Prince Bulbo, — the prince 
shorn of his glory. 

“ I want you to get him back to his family, Katie. There ’s 
nothing to be gained by his being here, broken-hearted old 
man as he is. He can’t stand it, and I can’t either. Come 
to the rescue of both of us, and get him out if you can. I ’ll 
tell you what to do. Go down to New Berlin and see his 
family; the wife is an invalid, and her letters are terrible, — 
filled with reproaches that harrow the old man mercilessly. 
Stop that at once, as you can. (Forgive me for being peremp- 
tory, dear, for space is limited.) 

“ Then you will need to see Mr. Jacob Krick, the prosecu- 
ting attorney, who, Hawkins says, is a good-natured German ; 


SUBSTITUTION. 


327 


his sympathies must be enlisted for the family as well as for 
the prisoner. The trouble will be with Amos Gridley, whose 
money Hawkins used. Hawkins was Gridley’s book-keeper, 
you remember. Mr. Gridley is an open atheist, and gloats 
over the extinction of the hapless Baptist light who was 
Sunday-school superintendent when this trouble occurred. 
Naturally, Mr. Gridley will assure you that Hawkins is a 
double-dyed hypocrite. But I know that he feels the shame 
cast on his religion as sharply as he feels his own fall ; and 
it was a fall from something that meant to be Christianity. 
However, no one could convince Mr. Gridley of that. You 
will have to trust to your own perceptions as how best to win 
over Mr. Gridley; but use your influence to the utmost. 
After you have made this beginning you can put the whole 
matter into Mr. Dempster’s hands, and tell him to work it up 
as he would work up my case. 

“ Hawkins lost two sons in the army, and his wife has been 
an invalid ever since the nervous shock caused by the loss of 
her favorite boy. They are poor, and have had a hard time 
in every way, and are terribly cut up by the disgrace. Haw- 
kins has seven years more here ; and if he is not out soon, he 
will never be able to do anything for his family. The sen- 
tence was severe as the law would allow, — make a point of 
that ; and also of the fact that if the family are not already 
dependent upon charity, they are likely to become so. You 
can further assure Mr. Gridley that his Baptist book-keeper 
will not appear in New Berlin again if your father will under- 
take the responsibility of guaranteeing him a situation in 
Milwaukee ; he is a good book-keeper. Will you do all this 
for me, my never-failing better half ? You are as reliable as 
you are lovable, and you will succeed if any one can.” 

Allston’s patience was not taxed long in waiting for the 
reply to this letter ; within the week his answer came. 

Notwithstanding all that she had to say, Katharine’s 
letter was begun as if no business were on hand. She was 
not thinking of any suffering cell-mate, but of her own 
husband, as she wrote : — 


328 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


“ ‘ Don’t tell me that you have found a mission, Katie ; 
anything but that ! ’ Does my own dear Robert recognize 
these words ? and was it this same dear Robert who wrote me 
that very missiony letter which I received from Waupun on 
Tuesday ? 

“ And you resorted to baiting your hook with a fairy story ! 
How did you know that I always loved poor Prince Bulbo 
better than the all-conquering Giglio ? Dorette and I were 
reading about them only last week, and my heart opened 
afresh to Bulbo. 

“ I went to New Berlin all primed to deliver a moral lecture 
to the unwifely Mrs. Hawkins ; but, Robert, that lecture is re- 
served for future use. Within ten minutes from the time when 
I sat down by her bedside, my tears were flowing with hers. 

“ If ever a poor woman needed sympathy and comfort, she 
did ; she has never allowed any one to speak of her trouble to 
her ; she has just turned it over and over in bitterness of spirit, 
mingling it with an awful Calvinistic feeling that will not allow 
her to soften her condemnation of her husband. 

“ After the shower, which did us both good, I told her our 
story; and then I was hypocrite enough to ask her if she did 
not find her best comfort in writing cheering letters to her 
husband (now don’t you draw any inferences), and I told her 
how deeply you felt for her husband. She seemed surprised 
and touched that any one should feel for him ; it appears to 
be an odd combination of morbid religion and disappointed 
worldly pride that makes her so hard towards him. 

“ The two little boys are Prince Bulbo in embryo ; and the 
whole support of the family rests on the shoulders of the 
daughter Nelly, an angular girl of nineteen. 

“Nelly has no religion, loves her father, and is impatient 
with her mother ; she takes in sewing, and sews as awkwardly 
as if she were a boy. She has a fair education, and had in- 
tended to teach ; but her mother cannot now be left alone, and 
insists that in their disgrace Nelly need not hope to get a 
school. The mother, who seems to have been an accomplished 
needle-woman, cannot make allowance for her daughter’s inca- 
pacity in that direction. 


SUBSTITUTION. 


329 


“ Nelly knows that her work is unsatisfactory, and that it is 
given her only out of veiled charity ; and she says that with 
all her efforts she is not making a support for the family. I 
did not hesitate to promise her that if they go to Milwaukee 
she shall have a chance to teach, — and she shall, if I have to 
start a private school for her myself ! 

“ The poor child confided to me the rupture of an engage- 
ment in consequence of their trouble. The young man is 
unwilling to give her up, but she refuses to ‘ bring disgrace on 
him,’ and will not see him. That was a subject on which I 
had something to say, and I believe I did shake her convic- 
tions ; but my experience had more weight with her than my 
words. 

“To-morrow I go to New Berlin again to interview the 
gentlemen concerned ; and you shall have the next chapter of 
my proceedings in another letter. 

“ Yours, in the spirit of missions, 

“ Katharine.” 

And then followed a brief postscript, not at all missionary 
in spirit. 

Katharine returned from her second visit to New Berlin 
in a state of anxious excitement. Her encounter with Mr. 
Amos Gridley was unsatisfactory in the extreme. The 
superficial urbanity of Mr. Gridley’s manner faintly con- 
cealed the antagonism excited as Mrs. Allston unfolded her 
errand. He listened to her with chilling, unresponsive 
silence, and then replied in a dry, hard tone : — 

“ I know all about that family better than any lady from 
Milwaukee can know. Our prisons are made for just such 
men as Hawkins. There are enough like him still at large, 
preying upon men who make their money honestly. I 
consider that I served the State well in prosecuting this 
individual to the extent of the law. Yes, I know he lost 
two sons in the war j I have nothing to say against them. 


330 


HIS BROKEH SWORD. 


I lost a son in the army too, — my only son, — and I have 
no Baptist expectations of celestial reunion j but my loss 
did n’t turn me into a thief.” 

Mr. Gridley paused ; but as Mrs. Allston hesitated to 
reply, he resumed, lapsing into a more familiar tone : “ I 
guess you ’ll have to let Hawkins serve out his time ; and 
if he dies before the end of it, the world will be all the 
better off without him. There are plenty of deserving 
people to be looked after, without interfering with the 
laws and going into prisons to pick out thieves like old 
Hawkins.” 

Katharine felt as if she had drawn her fingers across the 
cold blade of the sword of Justice. Under Mr. Gridley’s 
pitiless logic her own position became indefensible as that 
of Mr. Hawkins. But with an instinctive desire to con- 
ciliate the enemy, she conceded : — 

“ Of course you, whom Mr. Hawkins has injured, cannot 
be expected to see this matter as I do ; for I have thought 
most about the suffering he has brought upon himself and 
his innocent family. I ’ll think over what you have said, 
and communicate with you again.” 

I don’t know as there is anything more to be said on 
the subject. There ’s usually an ‘ innocent family ’ in such 
cases. It ’s a man’s business to think of his innocent 
family earlier in the day. I took my position when I 
prosecuted Hawkins, and I am not the man to back down 
for a hypocritical repentance.” 

And so the interview was closed. With drooping spirits 
Katharine pursued her way over to the office of Mr. Jacob 
Krick, finding that gentleman enveloped in circling clouds 
of smoke, with his feet at an altitude noticeably above his 
head. Blushing, bowing, and apologizing, Mr. Krick as- 
sumed the perpendicular, and offered Mrs. Allston a seat 
with great deference ; and he listened to the outline of the 


SUBSTITUTION. 


331 

case with interest apparently as fresh as if he had taken no 
part in the conviction of the prisoner. 

Perhaps the lady, whose sweet face looked pale and 
weary and troubled, appealed to him more forcibly than 
did the hardships of the Hawkins’s. The round bright 
eyes which gazed fixedly through a large pair of spectacles 
certainly grew sympathetic, and the wearer of the spectacles 
gave Mrs. Allston a comforting assurance of friendliness 
towards her enterprise. 

Summing up warning, advice, and self-justification in a 
single paragraph, he said : “ It is the business of a prose- 
cuting attorney to get men put into prison, — that is how we 
make our living; but nothing is to prevent us helping to 
get a man out after we have convicted him. But that man 
Gridley is like flint; he is hard, you cannot penetrate 
him ; he has no humanity, and he loves his money. If 
Mr. Hawkins could pay back his money, then he would 
let him go free ; but he is a Shylock, and will take his pay 
out of a man’s body and soul if he cannot get it out of his 
pocket. You send a sharp Milwaukee lawyer down to see 
him. Ladies can move the sentiments of a man, but Mr. 
Gridley has no sentiments ; it will take a sharp lawyer to 
work him. Send your lawyer to me also, madam. We 
will make a grand combination, as the circus-poster says. 
I will do all I can to help you in your kind benevolence. 
I go down to Milwaukee now and then for a little music, 
and through Mr. Voss I have heard of you and your 
beautiful musical talent. I am complimented to make 
your acquaintance, madam.” 

And so the enterprise was launched, and Katharine was 
tossed on the billows of alternate hope and depression 
through all the tedious length of the cruise. 

The whole congregation of the Baptist Church were ready 
to reinforce any effort on behalf of their fallen brother. 


332 


HIS BROKEN SWORE. 


whom they had known as a faithful worker for thirty years. 
But Mr. Gridley did not scruple to disseminate an insidious 
opposition to the pardon. Just at the time when prompt 
and energetic action on the part of Mr. Dempster was most 
needed, an important lawsuit detained him in Milwaukee, 
and weeks drifted by with all action suspended in the Haw- 
kins case. Delays and discouragements seemed endless. 

With unflagging devotion Katharine endeavored to keep 
matters advancing ; and feeling responsible to Mrs. Haw- 
kins and Nelly for all the unfruitful days, she kept up an 
unbroken series of hopeful letters to them, however unprom- 
ising the outlook seemed to herself. 

Even Katharine never understood how Nelly Hawkins 
contrived to make the ends meet during those months, but 
the family managed to remain independent of open charity. 
Mrs. Hawkins was prevailed upon to receive several profes- 
sional visits from Dr. Kennard, and through following his 
directions her health and spirits were slowly improving ; she 
was even able to give Nelly occasional help with her needle. 
Nelly’s flagging courage revived under the inspiration of 
Mrs. Allston’s influence, and while she refused direct assist- 
ance from her friend for other members of the family, she 
gratefully accepted comforts and delicacies for the invalid. 
As the small house in which they lived had been deeded to 
Mrs. Hawkins in days of greater prosperity, it seemed best 
that the family should struggle along in New Berlin as long 
as the father was absent. More than half a year passed 
before Mr. Dempster finally prevailed upon Amos Gridley 
to withdraw his opposition to the pardon, and the petition 
was presented to the Governor. 

It was during Mr. Dempster’s absence at Madison that 
the suspense of all concerned reached its climax. Katha- 
rine tormented herself with the question, How shall I ever 
face and comfort all the disappointed hopes if the Governor 


SUBSTITUTION. 


333 


gives a definite refusal?” Mr. Hawkins in the prison, and 
Nelly in her shabby home, could neither eat nor sleep for 
feverish impatience, and the rotundity of Mr. Hawkins’s form 
was noticeably reduced. At this time Allston felt that the 
risk of failure balanced heavily against the hope of success, 
and feared that his effort to help his cell-mate might end by 
plunging him into hopeless despair. 

When the eagerly anticipated news from Madison came, 
it was only : “ The Governor refuses to consider the peti- 
tion at present. He is overwhelmed with other business ; 
and as he has already been criticised for his free use of the 
pardoning power, he is inclined to be conservative.” 

Katharine tempered this communication in forwarding it 
to Nelly Hawkins; but she admitted to herself that the 
craft which carried their hopes seemed fatally becalmed. 

When several months had passed, Mr. Dempster went on 
another fruitless trip to Madison. “ The Governor does not 
positively refuse to grant the petition,” he reported; he 
only argues that there are fifty or more cases equally deserv- 
ing awaiting his consideration, and that there 's no reason 
for giving preference to Mr. Hawkins.” 

Katharine knitted her brows and closed her lips into an 
inflexible line. ‘‘ I ’m not going to give the thing up now,” 
she announced with determination as undaunted as if their 
efforts had never been baffled. 

There ’s only one resource left us. You must go to see 
the Governor yourself, Mrs. Allston; you may succeed 
where I have failed.” 

'' No, I ’ll do better than that, I ’ll wait another month ; 
and then — ” Her eyes were lighted with a fresh inspiration. 

‘‘ Mamma,” said Katharine four weeks later, I want you 
to go to Madison with me to-morrow. I want you to inter- 
cede with the Governor for Mr. Hawkins. You will suc- 
ceed ; people always do as you wish.” 


334 


HIS BROKEH SWORD. 


When Mrs. Kennard came out of the Governor’s office, 
her eyes clearly revealed her success. Katharine was wait- 
ing in an ante-room. 

‘^He has promised, dear,” said Mrs. Kennard. And 
then, as they stepped out into the September sunshine, she 
continued : “ The Governor received what I said about 
Mr. Hawkins and his family with no comment. He only 
asked me why I was especially interested in this very ordi- 
nary case. And then I told him about Robert, and how 
he would not ask for his own release, but had enlisted your 
help for his cell-mate. The Governor’s expression changed 
while I was telling him this ; he looked grave and inter- 
ested. And when I had finished speaking, he sat for a few 
moments in silent consideration; then he said, ‘The par- 
don shall be sent to the prison to-morrow,’ and he shook 
hands with me at parting, with a beautiful gentleness of 
manner.” 


CHAPTER LII. 


CUPID TRIES A VIOLIN. 

Allston returned to his cell the evening 
r Hawkins had left, he felt a grim sense of 
ing cheated himself. But the thought of 
mournful old man back in his cell alone, 
and of Nelly Hawkins fighting her losing battle, convinced 
him that he should never regret his action in that matter. 

Katharine was doing her best to share with her husband 
whatever was bright and interesting in her own existence. 
She had made him feel almost personally acquainted with 
the gay Baltimore cousins, who with their frivolities and 
their admirers had animated the Kennard mansion into 
new life, and given Mrs. Kennard a fresh avenue for her 
liberal hospitality. Katharine entered into all that con- 
tributed to the happiness of the home as generously as she 
gave herself to her prison friends, and she detailed to her 
husband with equal spirit the rise and progress of the 
Jessup family, and the brilliant flirtations and conquests of 
Anastasia Benton ; nor did she hesitate frankly to relate 
some of her dismal failures in philanthropic ventures. Her 
varied interests vitalized and strengthened each other, and 
Robert realized that ever the current of her life grew 
stronger, and its surface broader. He could see her old 




336 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


restlessness passing away, and her sunny animation more 
steadily resting upon a foundation of repose. It was a 
wonder to him how, with all her increasing cares and duties, 
she yet contrived to keep the sunlight in her soul ; even 
her undisguised longing for him was tempered now with a 
sweet patience and faith that touched him inexpressibly. 

In looking back to the theories and aspirations of her 
girlhood, Katharine herself felt that in the translation of her 
ideals into actual life they had lost something of their orig- 
inal purity and grace. Her life was less divine than she 
had meant it to be ; perhaps others found it more tenderly 
human. 

She took good care that Robert should keep the thread 
of old friendships. He had not lost trace of Mrs. Vandyne 
after she was Mrs. Dr. Baxter ; he heard all about her every 
time she came to her old home for the lake breezes, bring- 
ing with her of late years a beautiful boy. 

And through Katharine’s letters he had followed with 
interest the later love-affair of Dora Crissfield, and with 
amused sympathy the manner in which Mr. Voss had 
conducted his tender siege. 

It had taken time for Mr. Voss to rally from his dis- 
appointment over the pre-occupied affections of Mrs. 
Vandyne, his ‘^Dorothea;” but when he transferred his 
devotion, it was with a right good will. 

Miss Crissfield’s refusal of his first offer served only to 
deepen his earnestness. I have the right to devote my- 
self to you now, since you know that I love you,” was his 
justification. 

He bought a charming cottage across the street from 
Dora’s rooms, and renewed his proposal. Again he was 
refused. He found a good housekeeper and established 
himself in the new domicile, making the home as attractive 
as possible ; and he spent all his spare time between his 


CUPID TRIES A VIOLIN. 


337 


violin and the garden, which he cultivated especially for 
the lady opposite. Every morning she received a basket 
of dewy flowers ; every day he contrived to meet her, and 
w'ith unvarying, cheerful friendliness. 

Dora in the mean time grew restless and pale. She 
worked too hard, and was out of spirits, tired, and nervous. 
She felt helpless in the presence of the frank and serene 
good-nature of her unchangeable admirer. 

One warm, rainy evening she sat alone in her room in 
the dull twilight. Her head ached, and she felt wretchedly 
tired and lonely. In her lap lay a great bunch of car- 
nations, their spicy fragrance surrounding her; but their 
companionship was not soothing. 

Across the way Mr. Voss was a prisoner with a sprained 
ankle ; she had not seen him for a week. 

All at once through the twilight came a strain of violin 
music, the fragment of a song. What were the words? 

“ Come to me, darling ! 

I ’m lonely without you.” 

And then there was a pause. Again that line of melody 
was repeated in the penetrating, entreating tones of the 
violin. 

While the last notes were still vibrating, Dora brushed 
her hand across her wet eye-lashes, caught up a light shawl, 
and went out. She crossed the street and entered the 
open door- way, then hesitated. “ Come ! ” said the violin ; 
and Dora followed the sound through the dim light into 
the library. 

'' I have come. I don’t want you to be lonely any more,” 
she said in an unsteady voice. 

The next day Dora related this little episode to Kath- 
arine, with the comment : To be telling you all this after 
the early romance that I once confided to you, seems 


338 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


absurd, and I know that you are thinking, with Mrs. Brown- 
ing, ‘They never loved who say that they loved once.’ 
But, my dear, neither you nor Mrs. Browning can judge of 
the woman who dares to say she has loved twice.” 

This final scene in the courtship could not be told in a 
letter, but was given Robert in one of Katharine’s visits. 

But all his wife’s efforts could not counteract the effects 
of Robert’s imprisonment ; the reflection of her life could 
not alter the outlines of his. 

The last year of his confinement, like the last year of 
every prison sentence, seemed endless, and harder to bear 
as day succeeded day. The sense of approaching freedom 
excited irrepressible restlessness and feverish impatience, 
which in turn reacted upon his physical strength. Self- 
control grew more difficult through the interminable hours. 
Unreasoning fears assailed and tormented him. The very 
thought of liberty brought its own torture in an unconquer- 
able dread of meeting the world under the disgrace of 
having been a convict. The prison experience overcast 
all hope of the future. 

Even Katharine’s visits ceased to be a source of unalloyed 
pleasure, as after them Robert felt with renewed sharpness 
the painful contrast between himself and her; and then 
would follow the fear that in freedom he might fail to realize 
her hopes and expectations. 

He simply adored his wife, retaining all the lover-like 
admiration for her delicate refinement of person and dress, 
and her winning graces ; she was to him the perfect flower 
of womanhood. It seemed sacrilege to think of himself, 
the convict of eight years, with all the prison associations 
clinging to him, as her equal and companion. What if she 
too should feel this when their lives were in actual contact ? 
He tried to smother this haunting fancy, but its shadow 
crept into one of his letters when he wrote : — 


CUPID TRIES A VIOLIN. 


339 


“ As I think about our marriage, I wonder how I can in the 
future be to you what you are to me, how I can ever atone for 
all that you have endured and all that you have lost through 
me. It seems hard that I should take you away from your 
happy and beautiful home into my own untried future, away 
with me^ dear. 

“ I know you have thought about it ; but I want you to know 
that I think about it too, and that I realize that your love for 
me is a life-long sacrifice. My darling, I shall never forget 
that.” 

Katharine thought over these words for a long time ; it 
was with an overflowing heart that she wrote in reply ; 

Did you think to frighten me when you wrote, “ I shall take 
you away with me ” 1 Do you know, dear, when I say those 
words, “away with you,” over to myself, and think how soon 
they will come true, it is hard to realize any need of a heaven 
beyond, — for me, at least. 

And as to “what I have endured and lost through you,” 
oh ! have you not known what you have been to me all these 
years, Robert? The old ideal lover was a mere shadow com- 
pared to the husband whose strength and tenderness, whose 
beautiful love, has been the life of my life. 

What hero of war, cruel war, can stand beside one who day 
by day has silently fought and conquered remorse and degra- 
dation ; who has borne the loss of all that is dear to the pride 
and ambition of manhood ; who has looked onward and up- 
ward and reached out to help others while enduring the most 
terrible fate? All these years in prison you have lived in 
divine patience and unselfishness. Who knows that half as 
well as I ? Do you suppose that in prosperity I could ever 
have known or loved you as I know and love you now ? 

I can never tell you what courage and faith and hope, what 
blessed inspiration, you have given me ; but it is a part of our 
eternity. 

Not a book have I read but its meaning has been deep- 
ened through the influence of your mind over mine. Have 


340 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


I not written you every thought ? And many a half-thought 
has developed into completeness only when brought to you. 

This dear and beautiful companionship has sustained me 
every hour ; if a moment of gloom or weariness overpowered 
me, I found light and rest in the remembrance that you were 
keeping me in your heart. 

I have learned to trust you so completely that if you had 
been taken from life, O my darling ! I know that your love 
would have found me and held me still. This gift of love is 
ours forever. 

Do you remember those words of Robert Weeks, — 

“ There ’s much in having, but more in love ; 

And love can be, so it seems to me. 

Complete without possessing.” 

And yet, dear, how sweet it will be to feel the touch of 
your hand every day, to hear your voice, to have you near me 
always! It will be such happiness, the harvest of all these 
years, to go “away with you.” 

If you are summing up the past eight years in your thoughts, 
there ’s one comfort you must cherish, — that the dark chapter 
in your life kas given light to more than one poor, friendless 
being. 

Ray Bloomer called here last evening. I succeeded in ad- 
dressing him as Mr. Hoyne, and he spoke of you in a way 
that brought the glad tears to my eyes. And oh, Robert, he 
took such a fancy to Dorette ! He could scarcely look at any 
one else ; and when he bid me good-bye he said, “ Would you 
and the Colonel object if I should fall in love with that charm- 
ing young girl ? I’m afraid I shall.” 

I told him that our Dorette at fifteen was too young to have 
a lover. 

Dearest, I could write to you forever. How many printed 
volumes do you suppose all my letters to you would make ? 

Good-night ! In thought keep always near 

Your own 


Katie. 


CHAPTER LIII. 


KATHARINE TAKES UP THE GUANTLET. 



HE courageous resignation with which Mrs. All- 
ston endured her own trial was not extended to 
wrongs which she believed could be remedied. 
Year after year she had grown into a clearer 
understanding of the manifold evils of prison life. Her 
feeling on that subject grew more intense with her increas- 
ing experience. 

Once, when inadvertently challenged, she came forward 
in the defence of her prison friends with an intrepid spirit 
and fearless assertion that astonished herself. This occurred 
one Sunday at the Warden House, when she was engaged 
in conversation with a Madison lawyer who knew nothing 
of her relation to the prison. 

She listened as Mr. Barrymore discoursed at length upon 
the burden imposed upon society by men who committed 
repeated small crimes for which they received repeated short 
sentences. 

The lawyer emphatically stated that it was an accepted 
fact that under present prison systems a man was made only 
the worse by one term of imprisonment ; after two terms he 
was still worse and more dangerous ; therefore^ let the State 


342 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


pass a law that on a third conviction the man should be sen- 
tenced for life. 

The lawyer paused, heated with the force of his opinions, 
and looked to Mrs. AUston for confirmation of his views. 
The lady raised her hazel eyes to his for a moment with an 
inscrutable expression, and she was a little paler than usual. 

She spoke in a low voice, but there was an ominous vi- 
bration in her tone as she said : “ Assuming that you are 
aware of what life-imprisonment means, a free translation of 
your view is : ‘ Let our rights and safety be protected, re- 
gardless of cost to others.’ Do you know, I understand 
your position? I hear so much of that kind of argument 
among my friends who are thieves and burglars.” 

Mr. Barrymore’s face expressed blank surprise ; but with- 
out a pause Mrs. Allston continued, — 

They assert their privilege to live and enjoy themselves, 
regardless of the rights of others. It is all very familiar to 
me, this line of reasoning ; but I am not yet ready to in- 
dorse it. I think it is the philosophy of — his Satanic Ma- 
jesty, whether it comes from the top of the ladder, or from 
the bottom ; whether it is backed by the State House or 
by the revolver. I even go so far as to believe that a man 
who poisons his wife injures the community less than one 
who poisons public opinion by advocating the course you 
suggest. Pardon me if I am too personal, but I know 
what life-sentences are,” she added gently, with a wave of 
color returning into her face. 

Mr. Barrymore listened in a sort of breathless amazement, 
feeling as if he had accidentally touched an electrical spring, 
and was receiving the full charge in his own person. 

‘^What do you mean?” he asked, to fill in the pause. 

“ I mean this. It would be legalizing extreme injustice. 
Do we open the way for a released prisoner to make an 
honest living? We have not the courage to give him a 


KATHARINE TAKES UP THE GAUNTLET. 343 

chance. It is easier for us to close our doors, to force him 
back into crime ; and it is a trouble and an expense to send 
him repeatedly for repeated offences : it is easier to sen- 
tence him for life. But what becomes of the man? Life 
deprived of all that gives it value is worse than death. 
Prompt execution is more merciful than a lingering process 
of destruction. If life-imprisonment meant a rational exis- 
tence under conditions fostering moral and physical health, 
I should perhaps agree with you. It actually means existence 
under conditions which in ten years — I give a liberal aver- 
age — renders a man physically incapable of industry, para- 
lyzes his moral nature, and frequently wrecks his mind ; he 
is simply a burden on the State, whether supported in a prison 
or an insane asylum, or pardoned and taken into a poor- 
house. As the basis of your argument you state that one 
and two short imprisonments nurture crime and develop crim- 
inals : that is true ; it is equally true that under life-sentences 
self-reliance is eliminated, energy sapped, and the essential 
qualities of manhood destroyed. All this reflects upon the 
prison-systems more than upon the men imprisoned.” 

You take this matter very seriously,” responded the law- 
yer, not ready with any argument in reply. 

“ It is serious, — serious in its effects. The reactionary 
influence of our prisons upon the community is an evil 
which must inevitably assert itself in time. We may realize 
the injury we are doing when the evil has grown strong 
enough to turn the tide against us.” 

But what measures would you advocate for the suppres- 
sion of crime?” asked the bewildered lawyer. 

First of all, we need to recognize the established fact 
that many of our convicts are diseased or enfeebled men- 
tally. They should be taken out of our prisons and placed 
in conditions adapted to their needs. Criminals are men,, 
and the safest and best methods of dealing with men have 


344 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


been indicated by the New Testament. Social science has 
light to throw on the subject also. Society will never be 
protected by selfishness arrayed against selfishness. We 
must use other weapons, and work for a higher purpose 
than self-protection, or we defeat our own ends.” 

‘‘ I doubt if religion and crime would mix well together. 
I don’t believe much in sentiment myself.” 

The lawyer made this remark with the air of having closed 
all argument and finally disposed of the whole question. 

‘•Who is she, anyway?” Mr. Barrymore asked of the 
warden as Katharine left the room. 

“She is the wife of a convict.” 

“ You don’t say so ! She seems very clever in her way ; 
but I did n’t hear half she said because I was watching her 
changes of color, and wondering why she did n’t raise her 
voice when she was so much in earnest.” 

“ That ’s not her way,” replied the warden, “ and it ’s 
not her way to get drawn into discussions either ; I never 
heard her express her views before. She has had some 
talks with me. She has been studying prison problems 
with her warm heart and her clear head for eight years, and 
she has a fearless way of applying the principles of Chris- 
tianity to these questions. But she has studied reformatory 
systems of Europe, and intrenches herself behind very 
solid statistics. She knows that moral education is prac- 
ticable ; that reformatory measures . do produce satisfactory 
results ; that crime and its immense attendant expenses 
can be reduced, — in fact, she has as straight a road to her 
moral measures through political economy as through 
Christianity.” 

“These men impose upon her, of course,” remarked 
Mr. Barrymore. 

“To some extent they do ; she leaves a margin for that 
in her calculations. But she would rather risk helping the 


KATHARINE TAKES UP THE GAUNTLET. 345 


wrong man than refusing one worthy of assistance. Mrs. 
Allston is a person who would hold herself responsible for 
the good she might have done.” 

In another encounter, under similar circumstances, 
Katharine herself received a sharp cut from popular 
prejudice. 

At dinner she happened to be seated next a very agree- 
able man, who was particularly enthusiastic on the subject 
of music. Mr. Skeeles did not often find a listener so re- 
sponsive as this lady, whose name he had not understood 
when introduced, and he was charmed with her account of 
an hour she had passed with Rubinstein at the house of a 
musician in Milwaukee the week previous, and with the 
delightful imitation of foreign accent in which she repeated 
several remarks of the great musician. 

As they left the dining-room for the parlor, Mr. Skeeles 
observed that his new acquaintance seemed to lose interest 
in the conversation. To engage her attention he changed 
the subject. 

By the way, madam,” he inquired affably, “ do the ladies 
in Milwaukee fall in love with prisoners?” 

^‘Not that I am aware of,” replied Katharine, instantly 
on guard. 

‘‘ They do in Fond-du-Lac,” Mr. Skeeles continued. “ I 
am a lawyer and an observer, and I ’ve seen too much of 
that sort of thing. I knew one lady who even went the 
length of going to court and shaking hands with a prisoner 
every day during his trial. It was true the man was an old 
friend whom she had known all her life ; but such sym- 
pathy with criminals is disgusting sentimentality.” 

As he spoke, the man was noting with artistic pleasure 
and appreciation how well the color of his companion’s 
dress suited her ivory complexion and her beautiful hair ; 
but a change in her expression gave him a thrill of warning. 


346 


ms BROKEN SWORD. 


and his concluding words grated harshly upon his own 
ear. 

Flushing slightly, Katharine replied in a cold, unwavering 
tone, which of itself reared a wall of ice between herself 
and her listener : “I am one Milwaukee lady who is very 
deeply in love with a prisoner. I am here to-day to see a 
prisoner — my husband ; and not to see him only, but to 
visit others less fortunate than Colonel Allston in having 
friends.” 

Apology was hopeless. Mr. Skeeles completely lost his 
self-possession, stung by the recoil of a missile which had 
been aimed at a class that he despised, and in their very 
midst had struck this woman who had excited his admir- 
ation. He felt like a brute as the chivalry in his nature 
arose in her defence. 

Katharine turned to an adjacent window. She paused 
for a moment ; the discomfiture of her assailant appealed 
to her generosity even through her resentment. She could 
forgive the unintentional personal attack, but her indig- 
nation flamed at the deliberate slur cast upon other women ; 
and she only bowed in acknowledgment of the low “ I 
beg your pardon ” which reached her as she passed Mr. 
Skeeles on her way to the door and to Robert. 

But Mrs. Allston was not usually in antagonism with law- 
yers. Mr. Dempster was one of her warmest friends, and 
many a long talk she had with Judge Wentworth, in whom 
she found the most cordial sympathy with her feelings and 
opinions. 

It was one of the landmarks in her memory, the day 
when she first compared her own experience with that of 
Judge Wentworth, and found that from opposite sides of 
the question they had reached identical conclusions. Re- 
viewing twenty years of judicial life, the judge made the 
frank admission : — 


KATHARmE TAKES UP THE GAUNTLET 347 

“ At first I looked upon criminals as belonging to a dif- 
ferent order of beings from myself ; but I have gradually 
learned that they are men such as I, — that the difference 
is a difference of circumstances, education, and temptation. 
I have sentenced, men to prison, feeling that under the same 
circumstances I might have committed the very crime for 
which I was sentencing another ; and in many cases of a 
first offence I have known that it would be better for the 
prisoner and the community if I could repeat the old ‘ Go 
and sin no more.’ A little personal experience of mag- 
nanimity would be the making of many an unfortunate 
fellow. But a judge has no freedom of choice.” 

Katharine’s face lighted as she listened, and then she 
exclaimed : ‘‘ I rest secure now on a firm judicial back- 
ground. I have looked upon my own conclusions as an 
Englishman regards the statements of an Irishman, — with 
a wide margin for enthusiasm.” 

“ Enthusiasm creates the forces that move the world,” 
returned the judge. 


CHAPTER LIV. 


IN PORT. 


“ No sorrow upon the landscape weighs, 
No grief for the vanished summer days ; 
O’er all is thrown a memorial hue, 

A glory ideal the real never knew ; 

For memory sifts from the past its pain, 
And suffers its beauty alone to remain.” 



HE month of October, 1874, opened with a de- 
licious after-glow of summer. For days the 
gently heaving breast of Lake Michigan shim- 
mered with opaline tints most delicate and 
evanescent, and the earth lay enfolded in the golden atmos- 
phere, wrapped in repose after the fruition of the year. 

To Katharine this benison of Nature seemed a reflection 
from the deep peace of her own heart. The light of her 
husband’s ever-nearing return had shone more and more, 
until she entered upon the perfect day, — the day antici- 
pated through all the years of separation. The library was 
the room that Katharine loved best in her home, and it was 
there that the family reunion was to be celebrated after 
Robert’s arrival. 

Nothing seemed precious enough to be used at this fes- 
tival. Among Mrs. Kennard’s treasures were a few pieces 
of rare old porcelain inherited from some New Orleans 


IN PORT. 


349 


ancestor ; and the mother smiled as the vandal hands of 
her daughter removed these priceless and fragile possessions 
from the cabinet where they had securely reposed for thirty 
years or more. 

They must be used to-night, if never again. I ’m sure 
Grandmamma Benton would approve ; that young and 
lovely grandmother who always smiles on me out of her 
picture, would never have the heart to refuse,” Katharine 
had said to her mother as she placed the dainty cups and 
saucers upon the shining damask that awaited them. 

But now it is evening, and Katharine is standing alone in 
the library, giving a last glance to see that everything is to 
her mind. Yes, it is all perfect; the masses of Virginia 
creeper beside the fireplace are gorgeous in their October 
crimson and gold, the tea-roses on the table seem pulsating 
with tenderness beside the quaint and foreign porcelain. 
As of old, the gentle Madonnas look down from the walls. 
Yes, all is in readiness. In the hall Katharine paused be- 
fore the mirror to arrange the folds of her white burnoose. 
How vividly her whole life seemed to be of the present ! 
Even the mirror reflected the image of the Katharine of 
long ago as she stood ready for her first ball on that event- 
ful night when she and Robert met ; and yet again Kath- 
arine, an untroubled girl with a cluster of starry narcissus 
against her blue dress, that last evening when Robert was 
with her. And to-night she is in blue again. The tide of 
youth was flowing back into her life ; but the depth of feel- 
ing in the eyes of Katharine the woman would have been 
unfathomable to the light-hearted girl. 

There was no chill in the air as she went out on the 
piazza ; only with the lake could she share that quiet hour 
before her husband’s return. The belated moon appeared, 
with grotesque, one-sided face, and scattered its magical 
light across the waters. But it was not upon her own 


350 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


surroundings that Katharine’s thoughts were bent. Before 
entering upon her future with its promise of happiness, she 
felt impelled to look back upon the chapter of her life which 
was closing, to retrace the dark line of prison life which had 
become inwoven with her existence. It was no outside 
thing with her, it was a part of her own life j a part of her 
future also. Not in compassion only, but in earnest con- 
templation of its results, she reviewed the past eight years. 

How hard life had seemed to her at times, how un- 
utterably hard ! And yet, now that the ordeal was passed, 
she realized how, through it all, she had been shielded by 
tenderest affection; never for one moment had she been 
unloved, unremembered. What she had wished to do for 
others she had been able to do ; nothing had hindered her 
in carrying out her generous impulses. Comfort and help 
had come to her from countless unexpected sources. How 
easy her way had been, compared with that of other prison- 
ers’ wives she had known. Robert had indeed been the 
centre of her devotion to the prison ; but in what she had 
been to others, when once her life had turned in that di- 
rection, all the forces in her nature had carried her on and 
made it easier for her to do what she had done than to 
have turned aside. 

And now she tried to ask herself, Had she been faithful? 
But that question found no answer ; it was drifted away by 
the procession that swept through her memory. Again she 
saw Mrs. Jessup, with her violet eyes full of gratitude and 
affection, and the prisoners’ wives and mothers whom she 
had comforted and relieved ; the little children whose needs 
she had not forgotten, they all came back to her now, — a 
gathering of friends to wish her joy on the eve of her 
wedded happiness. At the remembrance of their grati- 
tude and affection her eyes filled with tears ; they might 
answer the question, Had she been faithful ? but she never 


IN PORT. 


351 


could answer it. Her thoughts turned from them only to 
encounter Alexander Hoyne, ex-Ray Bloomer, and others 
beside him, now honest, self-respecting men, who once 
were friendless prisoners. 

And for those who had disappointed themselves and her, 
who had failed and fallen, and gone out of her knowledge, 
she had for them only regret and compassion, and the wish 
that they might know how gladly she would again believe 
in them. 

It seemed a strange thing to Katharine that she had 
known not one prisoner without redeeming qualities. Faces 
she had seen so marked with vice and depravity that with 
instinctive aversion she turned from them. She did not 
think about them, nor judge them, feeling only that their 
lives were manifestations of human nature beyond her 
power of interpretation, the fateful influences that had 
made them what they were having their roots in impen- 
etrable darkness. 

But never a history had she retraced without finding in 
preceding circumstances or condition extenuation or ex- 
planation of the crime, — either environment, ignorance, 
want, or temptation so overwhelming as to be practically 
irresistible. Weakness or sin had betrayed these men to- 
their destruction ; but among the ruins of character she had 
found moral qualities with which character might be 
rebuilt. 

Dark as were the annals of individual crime, was not the 
history of cruelties inflicted upon prisoners, even in her own 
enlightened nineteenth century, a thousand-fold darker ? The 
blackest pages of the world’s history were inscribed within its 
prisons. What an appeal to the sympathy of the world was 
held in the simple facts of the classic story of the imprison- 
ment of the noble Silvio Pellico and his friends ! In what 
sublime beauty were their faith and fortitude illumined for 

23 


352 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


all time ! They were cultivated Christian gentlemen, the 
flower of Italian society ; and yet Katharine recalled in men 
neither cultivated nor elevated by Christian faith, fallen 
and suffering men among her prison friends, the same 
qualities of heroism and endurance ; and, like those beau- 
tiful Italian characters, what deep and comprehending 
sympathy some of them had shown for others. 

In looking back to-night, the saddest and most harrow- 
ing of the scenes and histories familiar to her were trans- 
figured. Something more abiding than their sadness shone 
through them. 

Hard as life had been to Richard Williams, distorted by 
sin and suffering, even he had gathered earth’s most pre- 
cious gift, — the perfect flower of human love, — and held 
it with so firm a clasp that it was his in death. 

And poor Otto Hermann, gentle, affectionate, ill, with 
his mind always a little clouded, who by some divinely 
given grace of resignation had turned the keen edge of pain 
and sorrow : had he not at last “ fallen asleep ” unresisting 
and confiding as in life ? 

And Bruce Downing, with his soul lifted up from the 
depths of sin and misery into the calm upper regions of 
eternal light, into the Life above all life : how complete had 
been his victory over the evils of this world ! 

It was a living voice of the present that broke in upon 
these thoughts of the past as the hall-door opened and a 
young girl came out, — a dark-haired, graceful girl. 

I ’ve brought you a shawl. Aunt Katharine, and I see 
you don’t need it ; but let me throw it over the back of your 
chair. I want to make a picture of you,” said Dorette, look- 
ing down on Mrs. Allston with a fondly critical glance. 

“ I never encourage nonsense like that ; you can make 
pictures of mamma to your heart’s content, but not of 
me.” 


IN PORT. 


353 


“ If there ’s nothing I can do for you, then farewell,” 
said the young girl, lightly kissing Katharine. “Tears!” 
she exclaimed, “ tears to-night ! why Aunt Katharine I ” 

“ Oh ! never mind the tears ; they are for other people’s 
troubles.” 

“ You don’t let other people have troubles,” Dorette re- 
plied with decision. “Oh, where should I have been if 
you had not come to me, dear Auntie Katharine ! ” and 
there was a world of ardent devotion in her voice. 

“ And what should we have done without you all these 
years. And how could I leave mamma if Dorette were not 
here to care for her? We needed each other, dear.” 

“ It ’s lovely of you to feel so,” answered Dorette, press- 
ing the hand she held in hers ; then she turned to re-enter 
the house. 

Katharine’s broken revery was not resumed. Thought 
gave place to feeling as she leaned back and looked away 
over the lake and away into her own idealized future. But 
as she hears the mellow, distant cathedral chime of the 
clock in the library as it numbers the last hour of separa- 
tion, her whole being is thrilled, — 

“ As when a harp-string trembles at a touch, 

And music runs through all its quivering length.” 

Vanished are prison and prisoners ; the pent-up longing 
has its way. All consciousness is merged in glad antici- 
pation as she yields herself to this delicious sense of rap- 
ture. Her own sorrows and the sorrows of the world are 
alike forgotten as love circles her universe. 

The winged moments take their flight; a carriage ap- 
proaches and stops. 

The air is fragrant with the mignonette that borders the 
walk ; the old stone house with its heavy drapery of vines 
stands out clear-cut and silvered in the moonlight; and 


354 


HIS BROKEN SWORD. 


Robert Allston finds his wife awaiting him in the very place 
where years ago he said good-night “to such a host of 
peerless things.” 

He has come back to her a gray-haired man. And what 
a crowd of memories, bitter and sweet, throng into his heart 
as he clasps his wife in his arms ! The past nine years 
were fused in that one moment. 

“We need not go in just now,” said Katharine, divining 
his agitation. “ Father and mother have gone out for a 
little while. Mamma says that when Adam and Eve first 
found each other in paradise there were no superfluous 
people looking on, and that you and I ought to have the 
same privilege of seclusion.” 

“ It all seems like a dream,” said Robert a little later ; 

I am bewildered by the unaccustomed sense of freedom 
and the delicious evening air. The lake and the moon- 
light seem strangely familiar, and yet unreal; but you, 
Katie darling, you are so very real that I almost think you 
have never been away from me ; ” and he held her closer 
as the sweet sense of possession deepened. 

“ I never have been away from you. I could not have 
lived apart from you,” Katharine answered. 

It was in that hour of reunion with his wife that Robert 
Allston felt the burden of the past fall away as the living, 
remorseful reality of his crime faded into a memory and 
a regret. 

That kindly lover of humanity, William Makepeace 
Thackeray, has said : “ Lucky he who can bear his failure 
so generously, and give up his broken sword to Fate, the 
Conqueror, with a manly and humble heart ! 


THE END. 


This third Edition of 
HIS BROKEN SWORD 
was finished the 28th 
day of November, 1893 
by John Wilson & Son 
for 

STONE & KIMBALL 
Publishers 


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